Kurania and the Slytherin Legacy
by MelissaKatherine
Summary: After Voldemort's defeat, Slytherin House becomes even less popular than ever before. Ten years later, being placed there is every first year's nightmare, and things are even worse for young orphan Kurania Riddle. Watch and see as she works to regain Slytherin's honor - this Parselmouth isn't anything like the last one.
1. Of Snakes and Letters

_**Disclaimer: I do not own anything that you recognize from somewhere else. I am not trying to make money off this fanfiction, and this disclaimer is for the whole story.**_

_**Author's Notes: I know the 'Voldemort's Daughter' thing has been done to death, but I kind of want to give it a try with my own twists. If you don't want to read it then you can easily back out, although I'd really rather you didn't. Please, enjoy?**_

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Three hours before sunrise, eleven year-old Kurania stepped into the forest near her home. She'd snuck out to search for help with a project – she had tried to scare Hidan many times since Christmas, but she hadn't had much luck. Kurania had been hesitant about asking her friends for help, but after yesterday she didn't feel she had a choice. Kurania had screamed when she realized that her hair glowed in the dark, and couldn't begin to guess how Hidan had managed to cause it – but he would regret it.

Once Kurania had convinced enough of her friends to help out with promises of food, and had managed to coerce all of them into promising not to harm Hidan, she headed back home. Her roommate, Alice Corwell, hadn't moved an inch, but Kurania watched her carefully as she changed into her nightdress anyway.

Once she had combed her hair of leaves she crawled into her bed, but Kurania just couldn't get back to sleep. Excitement over her plan kept her awake enough to see the beginning of daylight creep through the cracks in the blinds, fading from blue to white and finally to golden orange. When Mildred started ringing the bell for breakfast, Kurania shot right out of bed, and was redressed before Alice had even sat up.

Once Alice was ready, the girls stepped out of their room. Alice noticed Kurania's excitement as they sat at the table and warily asked, "What are you planning?"

"You'll see." Kurania flashed her a smile, and received an eyeroll in return.

"It'd better hurt only him this time." Another girl muttered as she sat beside Alice. Kurania hushed her, glancing at the albino who had just entered.

"What are you looking at?" Hidan asked, scowling. Normally Kurania would have given him a snarky reply, but this time she smiled and looked away. She heard him stomp off to his seat. After everyone had finished eating Kurania helped with the dishes before heading outside. All of the boys and several of the girls stood out there already, playing rock-paper-scissors to decide who picked the game they would play.

Hidan eventually won, and grinned at everyone else. "War!" He declared. "Let's play war!" He divided everyone into groups of three and sent them out in different directions. Kurania's teammates were supposed to be Robert Harvey and Keith Lane, but Kurania easily lost them in the woods. She went to the fort Hidan had created last time and found that she had been right – he was too proud, or perhaps too lazy, to make another fort. He and his teammates sat around in there, oblivious to Kurania's presence until she had broken in and tapped one of them. After that they immediately started chasing her, but were far enough behind that they didn't see her skirt around a clearing and blasted right through it – or tried to, at least. Hidan had been so far ahead of the other two that when he fell into the pit, the other boys had enough time to stop themselves from following him. At first they simply seemed a little shocked, and then Hidan tried to stand up. When they mesh that had covered the pit trap was moved all three boys began screaming, and the two that were able ran for help. Kurania couldn't help but laugh.

"Help me out of here!" Hidan yelled when he heard her.

"There's no need to hurry." She told him, grinning.

"You can't leave me down here with… with…"

"Are you sorry about yesterday?" She asked with a smirk.

"Yes!" Hidan squeaked as a serpent slithered over his foot. He hadn't moved since he'd stopped screaming for fear that one of the twenty-or-so snakes around him would attack.

"I'm not sure I believe you." Kurania spoke smugly, sitting on the edge of the hole.

"I am! I really am!"

She decided to get to the point."Then tell me how you did that."

A brown snake lifted itself up and looked him in the eye, flickering its tongue. "I don't know." He whispered, once it had moved away.

Kurania blinked. "What do you mean, you don't know? You did do it, didn't you?"

"I wished your hair glowed in the dark and it did – I don't know why!"

"It's called 'magic'." Kurania's head whipped around so fast it hurt. A brown-haired man with a long black cloak glared at her, not two feet behind her. She couldn't understand why she hadn't heard him coming. "This isn't how I expected to meet the two of you." He added as he pulled Hidan up and away from the snakes. He then introduced himself as Professor Longbottom from Hogwarts, and dragged the two of them back to their home. All of the children who had been playing were standing around the yard and looked highly relieved to see that Hidan was safe, and Professor Longbottom left the two with the rest and went in to speak with Mildred.

"Did you put the snakes in there?" Alice demanded, marching up to Kurania.

"None of them were poisonous, and I was going to –"

Angrily someone asked," What if you'd gotten it wrong and one had been poisonous?"

"Or what if he'd broken his neck falling in?"

"His pranks never endanger your life!"

Hidan shut the rest up for a moment by asking, "How did you get the snakes in there, anyway?" He appeared to have recovered from his fright already and looked honestly curious.

Kurania frowned at him. "I promised each of them a mouse if they hid there and didn't hurt you."

"You can talk to snakes?"Hidan asked, his purple eyes wide.

"Don't sound so impressed, she could've gotten you killed!" Keith snapped at him. The others wanted to scold him for his lack of self-preservation, but didn't get the chance because Mildred stepped out just then and brought the two to her office. Professor Longbottom was already sitting in there.

Kurania frowned: Mildred didn't seem to be angry at her, but at the stranger, which didn't make sense if she was here because she was in trouble. Mildred sat behind her desk and after a moment, said, "_So_. This man says that the two of you have been invited to attend a boarding school in _Scotland_. He also says that it is a school of _witchcraft _and_ wizardry_." Mildred's nose crinkled in apparent disbelief. "He said he would prove that magic is real once you two were in here."

"You don't have to, I know it's real." Hidan said immediately. Kurania snorted, and Hidan frowned at her. "You must've used magic when you told those snakes to hide in there." He said, and both adults stiffened.

"Snakes?! Wherever did you see snakes?" Mildred asked with a startled expression.

"It doesn't matter – that isn't magic." Kurania added, scowling at Hidan. "I had to promise them food."

"To keep them from hurting me, but you didn't have to give them anything just for waiting down there."

"What on earth happened?" Mildred asked, highly disconcerted.

"Nothing." Kurania told her, and then turned to Longbottom hoping to change the subject. "How are you going to prove magic's real? Going to pull a rabbit out of your cloak?"

Longbottom shook his head. "No, I don't think so." He replied, and then waved his wand. Three snakes came out of the end and three shocked sets of eyes followed them to the floor before Mildred and Hidan jumped up and stood on the desk.

Kurania stared at them for a moment, before asking them, "Are you _real_ snakes?"

One of them – a thick yellow one – drew itself up and hissed at her. "Of course I'm real, you silly creature!"

Kurania ignored Mildred's whimper and apologized. "I'm sorry, but I really didn't think snakes could come from sticks."

"That's silly – you can summon snakes too, can't you?" The smaller green one asked. "I can feel your magic…"

"So magic really is real?" She asked, hoping she'd just heard wrong.

The third snake, a vivid orange one with a long black stripe laughed at her. "Of course magic is real, you silly witch."

"So magical people can all talk to snakes?" Kurania wondered, a little disappointed. Other snakes had told her that she was the only human they'd ever understood.

"No, you're the only one who can speak the snake's tongue now." The smallest told her.

"I'm speaking English."She replied.

"No, you're not." The orange one laughed again. "Listen closely when you speak to us – you're hissing."

"No, I'm really no- God, I really _am_!" She interrupted herself as she heard it, and then looked up at Mildred. "Sorry, didn't mean to swear…" She apologized.

"You didn't swear, you've just been hissing, and it's _freaky_!" Mildred squeaked.

"I know, that one just told me – what's your name?" She hissed the last part to the orange snake.

"Name? I understand the concept behind that word, but I don't think I have such a thing."

Longbottom finally spoke. "So what are the four of you discussing?"

"They're telling me that magic is real and that I've been hearing English but I've actually been hissing for years – why didn't one of the forest snakes tell me?" She added, exasperated.

"Why can't I understand them – or you?" Hidan asked. He was slowly lowering himself to the floor, watching the snakes warily.

"Maybe we should jump at him?" The yellow one mused, tasting his fear in the air.

"Don't you dare." She told the snake, and then looked up at Hidan. "The orange one said that I'm the only one who can speak with them. I don't know why."

"Well, what did you just talk about with the yellow snake?" He asked, looking at it again.

Kurania hesitated. "She was asking the other two if they should jump at you – it's just because you're scared." She added hurriedly.

"I'm not-"

"The two of you can talk about this later. For now, I'm going to send these snakes back home – "

"Can't I keep them?" Kurania blurted out without thinking.

"I suppose." He said, and then continued."The two of you need to decide whether you want to attend Hogwarts. I have your letters, which explain the necessary items, and there is a fund for students who cannot afford supplies." He gave each of them a letter, and Hidan quickly tore it open. Kurania took a moment to frown at the address.

"How did you know I have the north side of the room?" She asked.

"There's a magic quill that keeps records of where students sleep – I don't have anything to do with it. I teach Herbology."

"Herbology? There's a class on herbs at a magical school?"

"There are a wide variety of plants with magical properties, and young wizards and witches should be able to recognize and avoid the more deadly ones." He explained, but he looked a little annoyed. Kurania supposed that he had to explain the purpose of his class quite often.

She read through her own letter, and frowned. "Mildred said it was a boarding school – where exactly is it?"

"It's in Hogwarts Castle, located somewhere in Scotland." He shrugged. "It's been made Unplottable – that means that it can't appear on a map."

"Why does it say 'we await your owl'?"

"Wizards and witches' mail is usually carried by owls." Longbottom explained. "Have you decided whether you want to go or not?"

"Of course I'm going!" Hidan exclaimed, while Kurania said, "I have a _choice_?"

"You both do."

Kurania frowned. "Is this a year-round school?" She asked, frowning at the letter again. "Oh, it says term, so probably not…"

"No, there are Christmas, Easter and summer holidays."

"Do they have to come home for the holidays?" Mildred suddenly asked. Kurania had forgotten her completely, and turned to see that Mildred was looking at the snakes, her face empty of expression.

"All students must return home for the summer holidays, but the others are optional."

"Well, are you going to take them now?" Mildred's tone revealed her hope.

Professor Longbottom's gaze sharpened. "I will be back in a week to help them buy their supplies, that is, if you've decided to go?" He directed the last part to Kurania. She nodded without really thinking about it, but decided after a moment that Mildred probably wouldn't have let her stay even if she'd refused to go. The woman looked horribly disappointed that she couldn't just get rid of Kurania now. "After that they will return for another two weeks and then you will take them to King's Cross Station on – "

"Can't you take them?" Mildred complained. "I don't have the time to drive them to London!"

"Hogwarts is in London?" Hidan asked, looking excited.

"London isn't in Scotland! We'll probably be taking a train from London." Kurania couldn't believe Hidan didn't know where _London_ of all places was.

"I can probably ask someone to bring the two of you and your things to the train station." Longbottom decided after a long moment. "However, you should know that these children are still your responsibility – and they are children, even though they have magic." He added sternly when Mildred snorted disbelievingly. "Neglecting them will still have severe penalties."

Kurania didn't think that was likely to make Mildred any happier with them – mainly Kurania, because of the snake thing – but she supposed she should be grateful that he tried.

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_**End Notes: So I don't know if anyone stayed for the whole thing, but one can hope! If you did read this all, please review. I like criticism as long as you tell me how to fix my mistakes! And I really love checking my email and finding new reviews! I don't even care if you log in first…**_

_**My favorite reviews are ones that give me ideas for things I can do in future updates. I only have a general idea of where this is going, so without a little help I might walk into that evil Writer's Block after the next chapter!**_


	2. To Diagon Alley We Go

_**Author's Notes: Thank you Kitkat13 and The Amendable Snow Freak for your reviews, and thank you StormNinja for adding this to your alerts. I'm also really glad that the stats say another twenty or so people read it – I was worried nobody would notice this story until it had a few chapters!**_

_**Fun Fact: Diagon Alley = diagonally, and Knockturn Alley = nocturnally. Did anybody else notice that when they were reading? I think it's pretty awesome. Diagon Alley has some weird people and Knockturn Alley is probably busier at night... get it..? …Nobody else found that funny..? Aww.**_

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The two weeks between Professor Longbottom's visits weren't very fun for Kurania. Most of the other orphans were furious that she hadn't been punished, but Mildred was too scared to really care. Alice had declared her disgust and started sleeping on the floor in another bedroom. Hidan was the only one who really spoke to her in that time, and Kurania avoided him whenever she could. The three snakes Professor Longbottom had summoned now slept in Alice's pillowcase and had taken to hiding in Kurania's clothes whenever she left her room.

That didn't happen very often, though. Kurania mostly stayed in there and chatted with her new snakes. She named the thick yellow snake Kinnyoa, the small green one Charon, and the orange snake Deidei. All three were venomous, and Charon had been summoned from a magical pet shop. "They sell snake venom antidotes in Diagon Alley," He told Kurania. "You should buy some when you go, just in case we bite someone accidentally." Kinnyoa and Deidei had lived in the wild, but their environments sounded entirely different. Kurania worried once in a while that she would kill them unintentionally by crushing them, feeding them something wrong, or letting them get too cold, but all three snakes were very vocal with any complaints they had and her worry soon faded.

Her conversations with the snakes kept her from feeling lonely, and she learned some interesting things about them. Charon could understand the English language and took great interest in books, frequently asking her to read them to him. Once she chose to read a knock-knock joke book, and Kinnyoa memorized every joke Kurania read. Afterwards she would repeat one of them whenever Kurania seemed upset. Deidei slept more than he did anything else, and most of his conversations were about how amazingly fast he could slither and how great of a hunter he was, with a stronger bite and more potent venom than any other snake. Kurania took this in with a grain of salt but didn't argue about it with him. Every couple of days Kurania asked them if they wished she had let them go back to their homes, but the three were fairly content. She wanted to take them to Hogwarts with her, but the letter was specific – an owl OR a cat OR a toad. Kurania supposed she'd have to sneak them in and hope that if she had to room with someone they wouldn't mind.

When Professor Longbottom came to get Hidan and Kurania, she wore her thickest coat. She did so for two reasons: firstly, because she had heard that London was a rainy, miserable place full of rude people; secondly, because it had inside pockets for Charon, Kinnyoa, and Deidei to hide in, because after two weeks of near-constant contact she didn't want to go anywhere without them.

"I'm not going in there." Kurania scowled as another person pushed past her.

Many people had shoved her without apologizing since she'd gotten out of Longbottom's car, but it still annoyed her. More people than she'd ever seen before were walking around or driving, and all of the noise had given Kurania a huge headache. Of course, the headache may also have come from listening to Hidan's constant exclamations over every building and person he had seen since they'd left home. She'd wanted nothing so much as a pair of ear plugs then, and had trouble convincing Charon not to bite him because a part of her thought it was a great idea. Professor Longbottom seemed to find Hidan's comments amusing, but Kurania was fairly certain he had really just been ignoring Hidan with some pleasant daydream.

"Why not?" Hidan asked, surprised.

"It's a _bar_." Kurania replied flatly. "I'm _eleven_."

The Herbology teacher sighed. "We're going to go straight through the bar and to the portal into Diagon Alley, where magical supplies are sold."

"You know, I now believe magic exists. I also accept that Diagon Alley and Hogwarts are real places, but do you have any proof that you really are a Hogwarts professor, and that Diagon Alley really is through here?" Kurania's voice steadily rose in pitch as she spoke. "Because this really looks like the sort of place you could con a kid into going in and then, well, kill them or sell them or… or…" Hidan started laughing before Kurania could finish, and she glared at him. She was sincerely worried about this and didn't appreciate his attitude.

"You're so paranoid!" He said, once he'd calmed down. "If he's lying and we get attacked _or something_ you can sic some snakes on him."

Charon wriggled until his head was above her collar. "That's the entrance to Diagon Alley." He confirmed.

Kurania flushed. "Couldn't you have told me that before I made a fool of myself?" She hissed at him.

"You brought a snake with you?" Professor Longbottom asked, frowning at Charon.

"Charon said he'd been here before." She explained, hoping he couldn't tell that the other two had also come.

"Can I hold him?" Hidan asked hopefully.

"I'm _never_ going to let you hold a snake!" Kurania told him exasperatedly. He'd asked that question one too many times in the last two weeks. "Anyway, you _should_ be too traumatized to even look at one!"

He laughed at her and then walked into the Leaky Cauldron. Longbottom followed him, and after a slight pause, Kurania did, too, grumbling.

The Leaky Cauldron was mostly empty, but the people who were there didn't look overly friendly. Longbottom lead the way right through and out a back door, to a little space open to the air. It had a single trash can and a brick wall, which moved to form an arch when Longbottom tapped it with his wand. The street beyond was full of odd people and odd shops, and was made of cobblestone. Hidan took a moment to gawk, and then pulled his supply list out of his pocket. The boys decided to buy robes first, and Kurania only had a problem with it when Miss Tatting told her she would have to remove her coat. She gently set it on the coat rack and thanked Charon for explaining to the other two. Fitting her with robes took several minutes and hurt quite a lot because Miss Tatting repeatedly stuck her with pins. She apologized every time and claimed it was an accident, but didn't poke Hidan once when she fitted him. Kurania sulked about it all the way to their next stop, a shop at which potions ingredients were sold. Professor Longbottom spoke with the man behind the counter, who went to fetch a first year kit. While they waited, Hidan looked over the ingredients on the shelves and pointed out some of the more interesting ones. When he found vials of snake blood, Deidei expressed his disgust by snapping at Hidan, who, after a moment, snapped back. Kinnyoa thought it was hilarious how pathetic Hidan looked trying to imitate Deidei, but Kurania wouldn't translate for him. Their fun was interrupted when a girl who had just walked in spoke. "Why on earth are you carrying snakes around in your coat?!" Her tone was half disgusted and half amazed, and Kurania cast around for a way to avoid answering.

Hidan spoke before she could come up with an idea. "Roselyn? Is that you?"

The girl blinked. "Hidan? What are you doing here – you're not a wizard?"

"Just found out a couple weeks ago." He grinned at her. "I wish you'd have told me you were a witch!"

"Who's she?" Kurania couldn't help but ask.

"Roselyn lives in town – she's a couple years older than us but she used to come play sometimes."

Kurania noticed that Roselyn seemed distinctly uncomfortable with that reminder, and guessed that she didn't like being associated with children now that she was a teenager. She appeared to think that way, anyway, wearing her hair in a tight bun and quite a lot of makeup. The girl quickly excused herself and left, and the man behind the counter shot Hidan a glare for chasing off business. He didn't really seem to get it, though.

They left with their supplies a few minutes later and bought cauldrons from a young woman before heading to Flourish and Blotts. While Kurania grabbed two of each of the books on her list, Hidan disappeared. He didn't reappear until Longbottom handed the man behind the counter some odd coins for the children's books. Kurania didn't bother to ask Hidan where he'd gone, and the group went to buy wands from Ollivander's.

Professor Longbottom walked in first, and then Hidan. Kurania barely made it across the threshold before Charon began to hiss, "So much magic, it hurts… don't take me in here, don't!" and she quickly jumped back out. Hidan shot her a questioning look, and she quickly explained.

"Let him hold your coat out here while you get your wand." Professor Longbottom suggested.

Kurania gave both boys a hard look. "Be careful not to squish them or shake them around, and if you drop them I will kill you!" She told Hidan fiercely, and hurried into the shop. She held out her left hand when asked and the first wand she was given (7 inches, rosewood and unicorn hair) shot gold sparks when she waved it around.

Mr. Ollivander looked to be very old and used a cane to walk, but he straightened right up. "In all the years I've sold wands, I've never had one work on the first try." He told her, his voice full of surprise.

"Sorry?" Kurania offered, her attention on the window through which she could vaguely see Hidan and her coat. When Longbottom had paid she hurried out and took her coat from a disappointed Hidan.

"Shouldn't it have taken longer than that?" He complained as he walked in. For him, it did; Kurania waited outside for what felt like half an hour before Hidan came skipping out, waving around his new wand. Longbottom didn't tell him off for it until he'd somehow turned a stray cat into a duck, and then he announced that it was time to head back home.

"Antidotes." Charon reminded her.

"I don't have any money." She told him under her breath. "Just don't bite anyone."

Kinnyoa cackled. "Because it's that easy."

Kurania thought that it was, and told him so. That led to an argument that lasted all the way home, occasionally involving Hidan when he would demand a translation every now and again, at which point he would offer his own advice on how to ignore annoying people rather than biting them.

As Longbottom parked in front of their orphanage, he gave some last-minute advice of his own. "Don't tell anyone that you can talk to snakes while you're in the Wizarding world. Many years ago, a man who could talk to snakes killed a lot of people and everything associated with him is considered evil, especially snakes. The staff already knows about it and may give you a hard time – if they do, tell Prof- I mean, Headmistress McGonagall. She will sort them out."

Kurania thought about this, and then winced. "Somebody saw earlier, at the potions shop-"

"Roselyn isn't going to tell anybody!" Hidan immediately said.

"Roselyn Andersen?" Longbottom asked. When Hidan nodded, Longbottom frowned and stepped out of the car. He helped the two bring their things up to their room but didn't say anything else.

Once he was gone, Kurania went to her room, and Hidan followed. When she removed her coat and pulled the snakes out, Hidan began to pull books out of his jacket.

"Where did you get those?" Kurania asked him, frowning.

"Flourish and Blotts."

"_What_? Tell me you didn't steal them!"

"I didn't steal them." He repeated dutifully. "Now help me out, I want to know some of these spells before we go..."

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_**End Notes: I hope everyone enjoyed this chapter… if you didn't, please tell me why and if you can, explain how I can fix it (unless it's about the snakes' names – Kinnyoa, the 'kin' part is gold in Japanese and 'nyoa' just sounded cool to me; I used to know a snake named Charon; and Deidei is really close to daidai, which means orange. They're silly names, but when I tried to write other names they changed back the moment I quit paying attention). I really, really like reviews, and if you like this, then you don't want me to smack into Writer's Block, do you? Oh, and while I'm on that subject:**_

_**Kitkat13 - I thought about **_**not**_** giving them names, but it would be so annoying to have to write 'green one, orange one' all the time. I also thought about putting Kurania in Ravenclaw but it probably is better for her to be in a more important house. I'm really glad you liked the first chapter!**_

_**The Amendable Snow Freak – I wasn't really sure if I should write about the Diagon Alley trip – I was thinking of just skipping to the train – but it would be much better if I got stuck after the third chapter rather than after the second, by which I mean that I don't know how to describe her first month or so of school.**_


	3. Off To Hogwarts

_**Author's Notes: Thank you The Amendable Snow Freak and Ruby-Elmwood for your reviews, and thank you Hermione'sHairLookAlike for adding this to your alerts. I'm not sure what to think about fahrudin's review... a spam message? **_

_**Anyway, enjoy the chapter!**_

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"I found it!" Hidan yelled, barging into Kurania's room - she quickly yanked her shirt back down.

"I'm _dressing_! You can tell me later-"

"I found out how to summon snakes!" Hidan cheered, ignoring her entirely.

Kurania hadn't expected that. "You what?"

"I just told you-"

"Why were you looking for that?" She elaborated, frowning at him.

"For you, of course. I still have to find out how you send them back, but to summon 'em you say 'Serpensortia' and swish your wand down like this!" He demonstrated with an imaginary wand.

"I didn't ask you to do that, now get out so I can change!" And with that, she pushed him out. He complained from the hallway while she put on her clothes.

"Tell him to go away." Charon grumbled.

Kurania scowled. "I've had to put up with him way more than you have! And anyway, this idea of his, to know a few spells before we go - it's a pretty good idea. He's returning those books the second we can get an owl, though." If she had any idea how to mail something to Diagon Alley without an owl, those books would have already been sent back. "Longbottom said I might have some trouble, learning how to defend myself is a great idea!"

"Summoning serpents, unlocking doors and making teeth grow - all wonderful defensive tactics." Kinnyoa laughed at her own sarcasm.

"There's something called a shielding charm that would probably be more useful." Charon agreed.

Kurania sighed, picked up her copy of the Standard Book of Spells and searched for shield charms. She had just found one - _Protego_ - when Hidan finally yelled, "Can I come in yet?"

"You're still out there?" Kurania called back, surprised. Hidan took that as permission and slammed the door open.

"What're you looking at that for? It's not going to be in _there_." Hidan gave the textbook a look full of contempt.

"Just because you didn't _steal_ it, you think it's useless?" Kurania sneered at him. "This has information on Shielding charms, which sound much more useful to me."

"Wha- but you could summon snakes and then sic them on people!"

"You could sic me on him." Charon offered helpfully, and Kurania frowned at both of them.

"I don't want to sic anything on anyone! It's a school, not a battleground."

"Actually, it was a battleground a decade ago." Hidan informed her smugly. "Against the dark wizard Voldemort. He died in the room we'll be eating in all year!" Before Diagon Alley, Kurania had believed Hidan illeterate. Now that she knew how well he picked up annoying or stupid facts, she really wished he _was_ illerate.

"Lovely." She mumbled. "Was this Voldy guy the one who made snakes seem evil?"

"Yeah, I think so. The book I read about him said he had a snake named Nagini - her head got cut off near the front entrance!"

"I really don't want to know who died where!" Kuriana scolded him exasperatedly.

"Oh, yes you do." Hidan said, oddly confident. "Hogwarts, A History says that six ghosts are in permittent residence-"

"Permanent." She corrected.

"-at Hogwarts, plus some that visit on Halloween."

"Did that book tell you whether or not each student gets their own room?" Kurania was sure he was teasing about the ghosts.

"No, they have different dorms for girls and boys in each year and house - oh yeah, the houses!" Hidan grinned. "There are four houses at Hogwarts and each of them has an animal for a mascot - one of them has a snake!" The way he said it made it seem as though Kurania should jump for joy at the news.

"So I will have to share a room." Kurania sighed, glancing at Charon and Kinnyoa.

"Take us anyway." Kinnyoa ordered her, while Hidan asked, "What?"

"Drat it, I still can't control which language I speak!" Kurania fumed. She couldn't tell what exactly made her switch to Parseltongue, because the cause seemed to vary.

"Sorry..? Anyway, I want to be in the house with a lion - the traits for it are bravery and-"

"Stupidity?" Kurania suggested.

"Yeah! I mean, _no_, it's _courage_!" Hidan glared at her.

"Courage and bravery are the same thing." Kurania pointed out.

"Oh, shut up!" He huffed, looking away for a moment. "there's a house for people who like to learn, another for loyal people, and the snake one's about 'am bitty on', whatever that means."

"Ambition; it means having a big goal that you'd do anything to reach." Charon provided the answer, but Kurania didn't feel like relaying it.

"I don't really think you're loyal or smart, so you'll probably be in the snake one." Hidan decided, not noticing Charon.

"I could be in the brave one." She frowned at him.

Hidan snorted. "You're scared of water and spiders and crowds-"

"_You're_ scared of birds and the dark and heights-"

"I am _NOT_!" Hidan bellowed.

Thanks to their freqent arguments, Kurania and Hidan knew only six spells each when they left for school: Protego, Densaugeo, Serpensortia, Alohamora, Augamenti, and Incendio. The family Longbottom had asked to bring the two orphans to King's Cross turned out to be the Andersens, and Roselyn wasn't happy about it at all. She crossed her arms and refused to look at anyone the whole ride, gritting her teeth whenever Hidan asked a silly question or told her about the adventures she'd missed in the last two summers. Kurania didn't have to suffer that torture; she had brought ear plugs and One Thousand Magical Herbs and Fungi. The only downside of this is that by the time she realized they'd arrived, everyone was outside and all of the luggage was out of the trunk.

"What took you so long?" Roselyn snarled.

"Sorry, didn't hear you." She apologized, and showed her the earplugs. Kurania couldn't help but smirk at the furious look on Roselyn's face. "Dying of envy?"

"What's 'envy'?" Hidan asked.

Mrs. Andersen, who hadn't been the least bit bothered by Hidan's talk in the car - perhaps she also brought earplugs? - answered his question. "Envy is the same as jealousy."

The four of them grabbed carts and went to stand in between platforms 9 and 10. Another family seemed to be doing the same as them, glancing around and waiting. Mrs. Andersen squealed suddenly. "That's _Harry Potter_!" She quickly checked her hair. "Oh, I'd heard his godson was starting this year, but I didn't think I'd get to _see him_!"

"_Don't_ ask for his autograph, Mom!" Roselyn begged. "It'd be so _embarressing_!"

"Why would you want his autograph?" Kurania asked, confused. The group of people they were staring at held one older lady with dark hair, one black-haired man with the craziest hair Kurania had ever seen, one ginger woman, and a young boy with violently purple hair. The man didn't seem squeal-worthy at all, and Kurania wondered if he was a celebrity. His name did sound a little familar.

Hidan explained it a little. "Harry Potter's the guy who defeated Voldemort - the evil snake guy?"

"She wants his autograph for murdering someone?" That didn't seem quite right.

"No, he _stopped_ a murderer!"

"By _murdering_ him."

Hidan was fuming. "That's not the point!"

"He's a hero!" Mrs. Andersen declared angrily. "You-Know-Who would have destroyed England completely if Harry Potter hadn't stopped him!"

If Kurania was in an anime, she would have sweatdropped. As things were, she asked, "Why was he trying to destroy England? And isn't Hogwarts in Scotland, anyway?"

She was saved by the fact that Harry Potter's group had began to move, and had somehow walked through a wall. The Andersens followed after them quickly, looking around to make sure nobody was watching. Kurania hesitated at the last moment and Hidan dragged her through. On the other side, a fire-truck red train waited. Kurania winced, and wondered what purpose hiding the station served when the train would be so glaringly visible once it rolled out.

Some older students helped the three with their luggage, and Hidan and Kurania climbed on board while the Andersens said their goodbyes. Kurania had wanted to go look for a compartment, but Hidan had held her back, insisting that they would sit with Roselyn. Kurania doubted that the angry girl woud allow this, but part of her hoped she would, if only so that she could watch Hidan bother Roselyn.

"What do you think you're doing?" Roselyn hissed when she climbed in and saw them waiting.

"Waiting for you, of course." Hidan rolled his eyes.

Roselyn sneered at him. "Waiting for me? What, do you think you're going to sit with me? Like Hell that's happening! You're nothing but an embarressing pain in the-"

"Rosie, c'mere!" A brown-haired boy called, stepping out of a nearby compartment. Roselyn turned pink at the sight of him, and sent a warning look to Hidan before hurrying after the boy.

Hidan frowned. "Do you think she's feeling alright?" He asked Kurania, who gave him a disbelieving look.

"How can you be so oblivious?"

"I'm not oblivious!" Hidan snapped, and then paused. He opened his mouth, and then closed it again.

Kurania took a deep breath through her nose. "Oblivious means clueless."

"I knew that!"

Kurania snorted and walked down the corridor, glancing into compartments to try and find an empty one. When she finally found one, She turned around to see Hidan entering the compartment that the purple-haired boy had been sitting in alone.

She hurried to follow him, but didn't have the chance to scold him as Hidan cheerfully introduced himself. "My name's Hidan Kiro - mind if I sit with you? Oh, and this is Kurania." Said girl gave him an angry look that he ignored.

"I... guess?" The boy said hesitantly. "I'm Teddy Lupin."

"Nice to meet you. Is your hair turning green?" Kurania asked, sitting down opposite Teddy, still glaring at Hidan. Hidan chose to sit by Teddy.

"Yeah... it does that." Teddy mumbled, crossing his eyes to frown at a strand of purple/green hair in his face. "I'm supposed to be able to control it, but..."

"Can you teach me how to do that?" Hidan wanted to know, thinking of his colorless hair. Kurania snickered. "It's not feminine to want to change your hair color, to, say, brown-"

"It's a bit feminine the way you asked that, though!" She laughed, and turned to Teddy.

"Are you two siblings?" He asked.

Kurania shook her head hurriedly. "No, but we... grew up together?" She said awkwardly, not sure if she wanted to announce that the two were orphans.

Teddy frowned. "Most of my friends are younger than me. They'll be going here in a couple of years, though..."

"How do you know they're magical?" Hidan asked.

Teddy gave him an odd look. "Their parents are magic, so of course they'll be." He told them. "Wait, are you two Muggleborns?"

"Muggle?" Kurania didn't recognize the term.

"A non-magical person." Hidan explained, and turned to Teddy. "We were raised in the Muggle world." It seemed he didn't want to mention their families (or lack thereof), either.

"Oh." Teddy said, glancing out the window.

"You say 'Muggle world' like the magic one's seperate." Kurania mused.

Hidan stared at her. "Did you look at _any_ of those books?"

"_Of course not_! They might dust them for fingerprints, and I don't want anyone thinking I had anything to do with it!"

"Dust for fingerprints?" Teddy echoed.

"He stole a bunch of books from Diagon Alley!" Kurania told him irritably. "Apparently, textbooks _just weren't enough_..."

"I'm adjusting way better than you already!" Hidan argued. "You didn't know what Muggle meant, who Harry Potter was, or even who Voldemort was until I told you! Why didn't your wonderful un_stolen_ textbooks tell you any of that?"

"...unstolen isn't a word." Kurania finally said. It was the best response she could come up with.

* * *

_**End Notes: Sorry this took a bit longer than normal! I write when I have time and ideas, so the updates probably won't be consistent. Sorry... **_

_**By the way... anyone want to invent a song for the Sorting Hat to sing? I'm terrible at writing songs... they all sound hideous. The idea of having the Hat go through a midlife crisis and start rapping about the Houses keeps appearing in my head too, even though I **_**know**_** it'd be too OOC!**_

_**Please review, whether you liked it or not - if you noticed something wrong, please tell me and I'll fix it! My favorite reviews are ones with suggestions, but even a simple 'I like it' or 'It sucks' makes me pretty happy!**_


	4. The Sorting Hat Rap

_**Author's Notes: Thank you The Amendable Snow Freak for your review, and Yukari99 for favoriting. Yesterday there were more views than the other two updating days put together, but only one person reviewed?! I feel so unloved! Oh well, I wanted to write this, so I did... Review afterwards, even if it's just something random! Please? **__**By the way, Teddy will become less narrow-minded as he grows, and he's not going to be a main character, though he'll probably be mentioned often.**_

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Teddy didn't seem to believe that Hidan had stolen the books, and allowed the subject to change. Hidan felt the need to ask Teddy a few questions, and while he did that, Kurania checked on her snakes, being as careful as she could to make sure they weren't visible from the door or to Teddy.

"Are you really Harry Potter's godson?" Was Hidan's first question, to which Teddy nodded. "Did he raise you?" Teddy's grandmother Andromeda had. "Have you ever flown on a broomstick?" "Are you good at flying?" "If you could have a place on your House Quidditch team, which position would you want?" Teddy wanted to be a Keeper. "Which House do you want to go in, anyway?" "What are the qualities for Gryffindor?" "That's the one I want too, then!" At which point, Hidan dragged Kurania into it. "I think she'll be in the snake one - what's it called?"

Teddy straightened up. "It's called Slytherin, and you really don't want to be there - that's where all the evil people go, and most of them really, _really_ hate Muggles and Muggleborns." His voice was much different from the one he'd been using, reinforcing the seriousness his words.

"Her prank last month could have killed me - is that evil enough for Slytherin?" Hidan asked, grinning at Kurania. Apparently, he _had_ thought Teddy was joking.

"It's not funny!" Teddy insisted. "Every dark wizard, every mass murderer, _every criminal _the Wizarding world has ever had came from Slytherin House! You can't hang around people like that, or they'll change you too."

"That sounds like a ridiculous exaggeration." Kurania scowled. "If _every _criminal came from Slytherin House and nowhere else, then it might be a curse or something, in which case the school should get rid of the house and have the Slytherin students divided up into the other houses. It'd be stupid to just keep letting people go evil..."

Teddy glared. "_All_ the criminals do come from Slytherin! Uncle Ron's said so loads of times-"

"Don't just believe whatever you're told!" Kurania said exasperatedly. "And anyway, after hearing you say that I kind of want to become a Slytherin just so I can prove you wrong by being a perfect citizen."

"You _don't _want to be a Slytherin, trust me! All of the other houses hate Slytherins-"

"Well, maybe _that's_ why they all turn bad! A person _can't_ be good when everyone around them hates them, that's common sense!"

"What, so you think we should rain praises on them?"

"When they deserve them! If people don't have a _reason_ to try and be a good person, then they probably won't try!"

Hidan began waving his hands around. "Quit arguing for a moment! I want to pick a side and join in, but I can't understand either of you!"

"It doesn't matter!" Kurania told Hidan. "I'm not bothering with this argument any more! I'm going to read. You two can go back to talking or something!"

"I think I'm going to find a different compartment." Teddy announced, standing up. Shortly after he stomped out, a woman came by with a cart full of candy, but Hidan and Kurania didn't have any money, and when Hidan tried to steal some Kurania smacked him. A few more hours passed while Hidan read _Hogwarts, A History _aloud and Kurania complained about the vagueness used in certain places of the book, such as when discussing which ghosts appeared around Halloween, where the kitchens were located, how all of the food was made, how students were sorted, and what made it easy to get lost in Hogwarts, not to mention _why_ it had been built to be difficult to find your way around. Her best guess had been that the wizards who built the school didn't want Muggles sneaking in, but Hidan had shot that down by pointing out 'Muggle Repelling Charms' on the list of protective spells Hogwarts had around it. When Kurania finally took the book away from him (only touching it with her sleeves - she refused to get in trouble for Hidan's stupidity!) they practiced using _Protego_ against _Incendio_ in pairs, and using _Augamenti_ whenever _Protego_ failed - unless _Incendio_ also failed, as it often did when Kurania tried to use it. When it became darker outside, Kurania threw Hidan out and changed into her robes, carefully stashing Charon, Deidei, and Kinnyoa in the pockets she had sewn on the inside.

Then she stood outside while Hidan changed. Teddy walked out of another compartment soon after and gave her an angry look, pointing her out to the person with him. Kurania reached for her wand, just in case, but Hidan pulled her back in before the other students could say anything. She worried that they would follow her in, but she didn't see them for the rest of the train ride. When the train pulled to a stop and a voice echoed through the train, asking students to leave their things on the train. Kurania felt rather relieved that she had made the pockets for her snakes - she didn't want to be alone when she entered Hogwarts for the first time.

Upon exiting, she was quickly seperated from Hidan in the crowd. She hadn't noticed that so many people were attending and had a rather hard time breathing as the first years were directed onto boats. Kurania tried to resist - she couldn't stand boats, or water, and couldn't swim at all - but she was forced onto a boat by an insanely large man, who didn't notice her protests at all.

Of course, Kurania wasn't the one who fell in the lake - Hidan was. Another student on his boat jumpd in to rescue him while the others waited nervously. Kurania wasn't as worried as the others, though, because Hidan was a fairly good swimmer. He climbed back into the boat without any help and was fiercely scolded by the girl who had tried to rescue him, but Hidan heard nothing of it - he was too busy laughing. Kurania hoped he would be punished once they arrived at the school, but the only adult in the group, the large man, also found it funny. The boats started moving again once everyone had calmed down, and soon a castle came into view.

Kurania had never seen a castle before, except from in pictures, but she was certain that it was the largest and craziest looking castle in all of Europe. It seemed much too big, even for the number of students Kurania had seen leave the train, and Kurania ran through a few silly possibilities for what the unused part of the school could be used for in her head. Her general thoughts were that part of it held terrible monsters, that it mainly consisted of secret passageways, that it secretly held all of the world's most valuable treasures, and that it was designed to hold the whole Wizarding world if all other places fell. She began to worry that it held all of that and more when the boats entered a tunnel in the cliff far below the school, because it obviously held just as much space below ground as above. As Kurania stepped off her boat onto the little beach, she fell on her face. She heard Teddy snicker and make some sort of rude remark, but she was far more worried about the possibility of having crushed one of her snakes. She couldn't check on them immediately, because people were watching, but once they had entered the school she quickly situated herself in a corner. Kurania dimly heard the explaination of the Houses and rules while she lifted her collar and asked, "Is everyone alright?"

There was a moment in which tears began to gather in the corner of Kurania's eyes before all three replied in the affirmative. It took Deidei a little bit longer than the other two; he had napped right through her fall. It was with great relief that she turned around, only to see something that made her scream and jump back, smacking her head against the wall. She wasn't the only one to scream when the ghosts slid through the wall; however, that didn't make her feel much better, because Hidan hadn't screamed, and, worse, he had noticed that she had screamed. He walked over to her, grinning.

"Afraid of ghosts?" He teased.

"You must be too, you're shivering!" Kurania tried to insist, before remembering that Hidan was still soaked. He seemed to realize that she had remembered, because his grin widened.

"So, Aoife over there insists that we'll be Sorted by how we fight a dragon. Do you think we're allowed to do it in groups? 'Cause I don't think I can really fight something like that without you helping me..." Hidan mused.

Kurania stared at him. "If they try to make me fight a dragon, I'm just going to leave."

"_What_? But all of our studying-"

"I'm _not_ going to die trying to get into some stupid school! I can't believe you're considering it; we could probably teach ourselves from your books instead of risking our lives to be taught by freaks who would tell kids to-"

"You can come on in, now."Professor Longbottom said, opening the doors in front of them. The other students and Hidan pushed and shoved to get in first, but Kurania held back, grimacing. When she didn't hear anyone being eaten or feel any flames coming, she tentatively followed.

The room she entered was quite large, and held four long tables with students and a table at the front with adults, probably teachers. In front of the adult table an ugly, faded hat sat on a stool. Most of the room's inhabitants were watching the hat as it started to move, and then suddenly began to sing.

_Yo, I'm the Sortin' Hat,_

_I decide your path,_

_I put you where you s'posed to go._

Judging from the look on the teacher's faces, things were not going as they normally did. Longbottom took a step towards the hat, but seemed uncertain what to do.

_If you got a hero complex, __Gryffindor's where you fit best_

_If you love learnin', you a Ravenclaw_

_If you got a goal you do anythin' for, Slytherin where you belong_

_If you hardworkin, Hufflepuff's for you;_

_Argue with my choice, I give you head lice!_

There was an incredibly awkward pause in which Kurania tore some of her hair out, wondering what sort of mad place she'd just entered, before Professor Longbottom cleared his throat. "Right... so, when I call your name please step up and put the Sorting Hat on."

"Can I fight a dragon instead?" Hidan yelled, drawing some chuckles from older students. Kurania knew he wasn't kidding, though. Part of her would rather die to a monster than have that deranged hat touch her head, too.

"Dragon? Is that this year's rumor? In my year, everyone thought they'd be fighting a troll..." Longbottom laughed, before unrolling the parchment he held and beginning to call out names. The first few kids had to be pushed before they'd walk up there, but after those ones proved to be alright after their Sorting the others weren't didn't hesitate. In fact, they seemed to be in a hurry to get their Sorting over with. "Kiro, Hidan" was called soon enough, and he nearly skipped up to the hat. It rested on his head for only a few seconds before shouting, "GRYFFINDOR!"

Kurania clapped for him, but stopped when he grinned back at her. He seemed too smug to clap for, after that. The next person called, "O'Connell, Aoife", was the girl who had tried to save Hidan. She and Teddy Lupin were also sorted into Gryffindor. Four more people were sorted, and then Longbottom hesitated, and glanced at Kurania.

"Riddle, Kurania." He called, and all of the teachers straightened up and looked at her, some of them glaring.

"Anyone want to go up for me?" She asked the other unsorted first years. One of them shoved her towards the hat. "Yeah, I figured." She muttered. Kinnyoa laughed, which caused Kurania to wince. Once again, she had changed language unintentionally. The mental scolding kept her from noticing all the stares as she approached the hat and sat down.

The voice in her head took her completely by surprise, and made her squeak. "Well, it's been a while since I've seen someone like you." The Sorting Hat mused. "And please stop dwelling on my... ah... rather ill-sounding song. I was bored of singing normally and decided to try something new. Clearly, that was a mistake.

"Now, moving on; I can see you either in Ravenclaw or in Slytherin. Which would you prefer?"

_What - you're giving me a choice?_ Kurania thought, startled. "I often give the choice, if it's a toss-up between two houses. It eases my workload, and also my conscious when things don't turn out all that well. Don't go telling anyone this, though; otherwise children will begin demanding to go to places they just don't belong in." Kurania hesitantly promised not to tell anyone, and then thought for a moment. She did quite like to read, so she might be happy in Ravenclaw; but she did think Hidan had a point when he'd suggested that speaking to snakes might be more acceptable in a house represented by snakes. Still, she didn't want to base her next seven years around that hope. Teddy might have it right about Slytherin, although Kurania really doubted it. _Come to think of it, he's already been proven wrong about all criminals coming from Slytherin; Hidan stole several books and he's in Gryffindor, now. Still, I don't really have any great ambition._

"Are you so sure? Don't you remember telling Teddy Lupin that you would prove him wrong about Slytherins by being a perfect citizen?" The Sorting Hat seemed amused. Kurania didn't really think that counted, because she'd been joking, but improving Slytherin's reputation did sound like an interesting project...

Dimly, Kurania heard the Sorting Hat yell, "SLYTHERIN!" and the teachers behind her begin to talk. It was only when the hat was taken from her that she realized what had just happened and winced. She remembered Teddy Lupin saying that everybody hated Slytherins and couldn't help but believe that most of the hall was glaring at her, although she refused to look. She could hear Hidan clapping and yelling congratulations, and then she heard another Gryffindor tell him off. Still, it gave her the strength to stand up and walk to Slytherin table. She chose a seat on the end of the table near the door where very few people sat.

Still, one of the other Slytherins - Kurania wasn't sure, but she thought he might be a first year - introduced himself. "My name's Rode - you took an awfully long time on the hat, did he want to put you somewhere else?" Rode had brown hair that was fairly long, for a boy at least. His eyes were dark blue, and he had a few freckles across his small pointed nose.

"Ravenclaw." She mumbled. "I like books a lot..."

"Ah." He said, nodding. "Ravenclaw's the second-best house, I'd say. I hope you don't mind if I ask, but are your parents alive?"

"Huh?" Kurania blinked. "Um, I don't know."

"You don't know?" He repeated, frowning in a somewhat sympathetic way.

"I don't really want to talk about it." She told him. He nodded, gave an apologetic look, and then moved his attention to clapping for "Zabini, Denise", a thin girl with long black hair and an olive complexion that had just been sorted into Slytherin.

* * *

_**End Notes: I can't make up a rap - this is apparent xD Oh well, I don't think the Sorting Hat should be able to think up a rap song. Wouldn't fit his character... I was actually going to try and write a decent song but my **_**only**_** reviewer out of the **_**15**_** people who read the last chapter said I should have him rap. If you have a better suggestion, I will happily rewrite this chapter to suit it! I don't care how much of it I have to rewrite, I do want something better than this.**_

_**Also: for those of you who genuinely like this story, you should know that I'm going to hit Writer's Block with the next chapter, because I don't have enough OC's for teachers, and I don't have anything big planned til Halloween. I want there to be a couple chapters before Halloween though, because that's an important point in the story and one I'm not yet ready to write. I'm really going to need suggestions to make the next chapter! Anything, even a silly thing, is more than welcome! I'm also really tempted to ask for help with my plan for Halloween, but it's supposed to be a surprise. Anyone want to hazard a guess at what's going to happen that day? I've dropped hints in this chapter and in the last.**_


	5. Go Team Slytherin

_**Author's Notes: I'm really, really sorry this took so long to write, and it's a little lacking but I have to start somewhere. There are a few important things in here but not nearly as many as I want...**_

_**Thanks again to The Amendable Snow Freak - I'm really grateful that you've reviewed every chapter! And thank you very much for the teacher OC's, they'll appear in the next chapter!**_

* * *

Denise Zabini chose the seat beside Kurania and grinned at Rode. "The hat called me an awful toad." She happily announced. "I called him a miserable old freak!" She glanced at Kurania. "Hi, by the way!"

"Hi?" Kurania offered, somewhat awkwardly. The lady at the center of the teacher's table stood up and began to speak. Kurania didn't hear any of it because Denise was babbling one ear off while Charon whined in the other.

"My dad's remarrying next month, I do hope I'll be allowed to attend-"

"That voice is worse than Hidan's!"

"- bought me the most beautiful necklace -"

"- even stay on one topic for three -"

"- This year, I decorate for my family's Yule Ball -"

"Shut her up!"

"- All invited, every Slytherin -"

"Shut her up or I kill her!" Charon threatened, starting to push his way up her cloak.

" - offer dance lessons for those weren't raised properly -"

Luckily, the appearance of food silenced Denise before Charon could try anything drastic. Kinnyoa couldn't help but chuckle as Kurania flinched away from the table. Rode and Denise didn't seem to notice, though, and Kurania was quite relieved. She looked over her choice of food and had just decided what she wanted to grab when she noticed that all of the students near her were eating very slowly and carefully, sitting perfectly straight. Denise was dabbing her mouth with a napkin between every bite, and she wasn't the only Slytherin to do so.

Kurania grimaced. While she wasn't a slob, she certainly didn't know how to eat like that. She turned to look at Hidan, and saw him talking with his mouth open, stuffing his face and eating with his fingers. His housemates didn't seem to mind, but Kurania turned away in disgust.

She had a hard time copying the way other Slytherins ate, and was still hungry when the plates emptied themselves. After the Headmistress dismissed everyone, an older boy with dark brown hair, blue eyes, and fair skin stood up.

"First years, follow me!" He called along the Slytherin table.

"Who's that?" Kurania wondered.

Rode grinned proudly. "My cousin Plue. He's a prefect this year!"

The boy known as Plue led the first years deep underground, where everything was cold and damp, and even the flickering torches seemed gloomy. The students stopped in front of a blank stretch of wall. "The password for this week is venemous." At this, the wall split and revealed a room with several green velvet couches. Everyone stepped in and circled around Plue, who spoke again. "Here in Slytherin, we work together. The rest of the school believes we're evil scum, so you'll face enough hatred without getting it here too. There won't be any fighting between Slytherins, you hear me?" He gave each first year a stern look. "I expect you all to travel around the castle in groups. Gryffindors in particular like to attack Slytherins, and you will stand a better chance in a group. If you see an opportunity to get them back you'd better take it." He added. "On a different note, if a teacher gives you trouble because you're a Slytherin, or because of your family, accept whatever they say without argument and then report it to me as soon as possible. If you can't find me, then talk to Professor Dagsworth, the Head of Slytherin House. She teaches Astronomy, but don't expect lenience in that class. If proof is offered that Professor Dagsworth is favoring Slytherins, she will be fired." Plue sighed. "Actually, she will have to be tougher on us than anybody else. Please understand that she must do so to retain her position so that she can protect us from certain other members of the staff. There will be special tutor sessions to make sure that you will all still pass Astronomy, by the way. Also, if you begin to fall behind in any class, please tell me! I'll find a tutor for you." Plue paused for a moment. "Yeah, I think that's everything... any questions?Yes, Mr..?"

A pale boy with black hair and icy blue eyes had raised his hand. "Orion Smith." He answered in a loud voice. "What's your name, sir?"

Plue blinked and blushed a little. "I forgot to introduce myself? Sorry. My name's Pluto Reardon, although I like to be called Plue." A few students snickered, and that helped to kill the tension the previous conversation had generated. "Right, well, if there's no more question, boys to the left and -"

"Isn't there supposed to be a girl prefect?" A girl who looked exactly like Orion but with longer hair interrupted him to ask.

"Yeah, there is, but none of the girls would take the badge. Being a prefect in this house means that you've got much more work than a normal student, and O.W.L. year is hard enough."

"Then why are you bothering?" The girl wanted to know.

Pluto Reardon grinned at her. "'Cause I love kids." He told her with a shrug. "I plan to teach Charms, once old Flitty retires. You lot will probably still be here when that happens, actually."

Kurania blinked. She was pretty sure that schooling for teachers took quite a while, too long for him to have a chance to teach them, but perhaps that was also different in the Wizarding world.

"Would you be the Head of Slytherin House, then?" Denise wanted to know.

"Probably not." He replied. "Actually, I might have to be Ravenclaw's." Pluto made a face. "But, let's end this chat here, alright? I don't know about you, but I'm exhausted."

"So am I." Charon agreed, startling Kurania. "Yes, I'm still here, no, I don't think anyone hears me." She glanced around though, just in case. She and four other girls were headed toward their dormitory, which was inexplicably the farthest from the entrance. Denise was telling a girl with long silvery-blonde curly hair that she called Opal all about her dress robes, and the other two were arguing about broomsticks or chopsticks or some such thing.

"Still, you should be more careful." Kurania mumbled quietly. Inside of the first year dormitory, there were five large beds with comforters and curtains that exactly matched the couches in the commons. Each held luggage, and Kurania's was on the bed nearest. It also held the least number of bags, a total of two, but Kurania didn't really care about that. She plopped onto the bed, and instantly realized that it would spoil her for her entire life. She laid down and relaxed, not even noticing when Charon slithered out of her robes until one of Kurania's dormmates shrieked.

"What's going on?" Kurania asked, jerking up.

"Don't move!" An unknown girl with short blonde hair ordered, staring at Kurania's lap.

Ignoring the order, she looked down, and then Kurania scowled. "Damn it, Charon!" She swore, and gave her roommates an apologetic look.

However, they all stared at her blankly. Finally, Opal spoke up. "So... you really are..?"

"Are what?" Kurania asked, worried by Opal's scared tone of voice.

"Nevermind." Denise said before Opal could reply. "Do you have a cage for your snake?"

Kurania grimaced. "Er, no... but they won't bite anyone, I promise -"

"I'm more worried that we'll accidentally kill - wait, did you say 'they'?"

"I brought three snakes..." Kurania admitted, pulling Kinnyoa and Deidei out of her robes. Kinnyoa flicked her tongue, and then laughed. "What's so funny?" Kurania hissed.

"Nothing, nothing." Kinnyoa reassured her, before chuckling again.

"Erm, what are you saying to it?" One of the girls asked timidly, and Kurania explained. After a few more awkwardly silent minutes, They all decided to ignore the snakes and introduce themselves to one another. Kurania already knew Denise Zabini; Opal's last name was Anders; The girl that resembled Orion Smith was his twin sister, Lyra Smith; and the last girl, the one with short blonde hair, was known as Christine Selwyn. Of the five, Kurania and Christine were the only ones that were not raised in the Wizarding world.

Denise was horribly upset by this. "Do you mean you don't know anything of our world, our traditions?" She demanded to know, and when both girls shook their heads Denise nearly started crying. "You poor things! Oh, you've so much to learn... I thought I might have to give dance lessons if I wanted everyone to go to my family's Yule Ball, but having to teach you everything else..! Of course, I'll do it anyway - you're my friends, I can't leave you in ignorance!"

Kurania didn't really feel ignorant, but she didn't see a reason to argue with Denise. Charon, however, felt differently. "You and your damn voice, that's bad enough - but calling my girl ignorant on top of that! I probably know more about culture than you do, you -"

"What did that thing say about Kurania?" Kinnyoa asked.

"She called her a 'poor thing' and said she was ignorant!" Charon practically spat.

"What's ignorant mean?" Kinnyoa wanted to know.

"Stupid." Deidei answered.

Kinnyoa was offended. "Hey, just because I don't know a word -"

"Ignorant _means_ stupid, you imbecile." Charon elaborated.

"What's _that_ mean?"

While those three argued, Denise rambled on about the different holidays Pure-blood witches and wizards celebrate, and then about the most important Wizarding surnames that Kurania and Christine would surely have to pay respect to if they attended her party. At some point, Christine changed, put in neon orange ear plugs, and went to sleep. Kurania followed suit after a long chat with her snakes about restraning themselves when Denise annoyed them.

Kurania's dream featured a few dozen people with color-changing robes and beehive hairstyles waltzing in midair around the Slytherin commons area, with Hidan and Teddy Lupin sitting in a corner dressed in rags, with a sign declaring that they needed a new House because they'd blown Gryffindor up. This seemed to be a good enough dream, until Mildred showed up and tied Kurania up with a rope that turned into a large, vivid green snake with a red thing on it's head like you'd see on a rooster's. Kurania asked her to let it free, but it told her that it wouldn't do so until she agreed to marry Robert Harvey. When she told it that she couldn't marry until her left big toenail was four inches long, it tickled her so much she woke up.

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_**End Notes: Was anybody else appalled by Ron's manners throughout the books? Talking with his mouth full all the time, and he sprayed food at someone at least once... *shudders***_

_**Sorry, just had to mention that. There's a couple more of my lame attempts at foreshadowing here, but not for the Halloween event. I have a couple of chapters somewhat planned before that... Sorry about the weird dream, I felt like this chapter needed some craziness :)**_

_**Anyone have anything they'd like to see Kurania do? Any comments on the content of the chapter? Corrections? Flames? Because I'd really, really, really love to see some reviews, of any kind!**_


	6. The First Day

_**Author's Note: I'm really, really sorry it took me such a long time to work on this. I found an amazing Harry Potter world roleplay site - www rmimagic com - and I've been writing for that so I've been too busy to really try on this chapter. I did work out what the next few would be like though, and if I have the time I'll post those soon. Thanks to everybody who has read or reviewed! I'm really sorry, but it's been so long that I'm not going to thank more specifically. Sorry, but I promise shoutouts for those who review or favorite this time!**_

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Kurania couldn't really remember her dream once she woke up, but she was pretty sure Denise's wakeup tickling had entered it. "Why didn't you bite her when she came up to me?" She demanded angrily of her snakes.

Kinnyoa laughed. "The annoying girl told Charon that you needed to wake up and leave with them or you would be attacked on your way to breakfast. That seemed important enough."

Kurania grimaced. She'd forgotten about Plue's warning from the night before. "Next time, pull my hair." She told Denise in a resigned voice. The five girls dressed and prepared for the day in silence, and hurried to the Great Hall. Kurania had never been fond of big breakfasts, and so she only took toast. The other girls ate a little more that that, but didn't get a crumb on their robes. Kurania tried to be discreet when she brushed off her lap but she was pretty sure Denise had seen.

After breakfast, all of the Slytherins went to get their schedules from Professor Dagsworth. The woman who was head of Slytherin House didn't look to be much older than her oldest students, with glossy long black hair and sparkling blue eyes. She was pretty even when she was sneering and insulting her own students. When Kurania's turn to recieve her schedule came, another adult, this one male, was standing next to Professor Dagsworth. He looked to Kurania like a very old man and she found it a little disturbing that he was blatantly flirting with the younger teacher. After a minute or two of waiting, she coughed to attract their attention. Professor Dagsworth seemed relieved, but the other teacher was quite annoyed. "Can't you see that the adults are ta- You!" He interrupted himself, paling.

"Riddle, Kurania, right?" Professor Dagsworth asked, pretending to look annoyed as she rifled through her stack of papers. She found it easily enough and handed it to her. Kurania tried to hurry away with it, but the old man grabbed her arm and squeezed it so tightly it hurt.

"Filth like you doesn't belong here!" He snarled into her face. Beside him, the Astronomy professor looked alarmed and concerned, but tried to distract herself with something else.

Kurania winced as he cut off the circulation on her wrist. "Let go of her!" Someone yelled, and yanked them apart. "What the heck? You're a teacher, aren't you!?" Hidan scolded the older man, standing protectively in front of Kurania.

"Get out of my way!" The man spat at Hidan. Kurania noticed that the Headmistress was coming towards the commotion and hurried out of the Great Hall, hoping Hidan could handle things. However, her guilt at leaving him alone kept her from going too far and she waited in the entrance hall. Denise and the other first year girls followed soon after, and were relieved that she hadn't gone to class without them. "You could have been hexed somewhere along the way, might've taken forever to find you!" Christine worried.

Opal, though, had a question. "Why'd that Gryffindor boy stand up for you?" She wanted to know. "I thought they hated us off the bat."

"Err, his name's Hidan..." Kurania told them, and explained rather awkwardly that, "we grew up together, and I guess that one night as a Gryffindor hasn't brainwashed him into hating me yet?"

"So he's a friend, then?" Lyra double-checked.

"Not really... we've only gotten along since I-" made him fall in a snake pit, she finished mentally. "-since _we_ got our letters."

"That's a pity. It would be nice to have someone friendly in Gryffindor - they get away with absolutely everything, according to my cousin." Denise told her, wrinkling her nose. "Well, we'd better get to class. We've potions first hour."

The potions room was not as deeply underground as the Slytherin common room, but it was still cold and miserable. The school robes were a little thick, but they weren't nearly enough and Kurania's teeth chattered annoyingly. In the classroom, there were rows of tables with two chairs to each. Opal and Denise hurried to sit at a table, Christina and Lyra follwed suit, and Kurania ended up beside an unknown Slytherin boy. A surprisingly young man with blonde hair and brown eyes entered the classroom soon after everyone was seated and introduced himself as Professor Clay. He smiled quite brightly, but only towards the Hufflepuff side of the room, and during role call he called each Slytherin's name thrice, as if he hadn't heard them, which earned him many laughs from the Hufflepuffs.

Kurania tried to ignore their laughter and appreciate the repeating of Slytherin names, because it gave her the opportunity to learn that Rode's full name was Roderick Greengrass and that the boy beside her was Gabriel Pikeston. It became rather hard to ignore the laughter, though, when Professor Clay reached her own name. "Riddle, Koo reign ya" He stumbled it out.

"It's Kurania, sir." She corrected him.

"Riddle, Cranium? Are you here?" He asked again, looking around.

Her eye twitched. "It's Kurania!"

"Oh, there you are... how do you say it's pronounced?"

"Kurania."

"Clan ya? That's an odd name-"

"Kurania! Ku like coo-coo clock, ra like raw meat, ni like the joint in the middle of your leg, and an 'uh'!" She snapped at him. Some teachers had trouble with her name before, but she'd never had to break it down for one, and it ticked her off.

"I don't like your tone, Miss Riddle." Clay told her, a smug look on his face as he glanced at the Hufflepuff's expressions. "Ten points from Slytherin for that, and ten more for being late to class. If you talk to me like that again, I'll have you in detention for a week." The yellow and black side of the room cheered, and Kurania half-expected Clay to bow to them.

Kurania began an angry retort, but Gabriel quickly pinched her arm. "Remember what Pluto said." He mumbled. The rest of the class period was as annoying as roll call had been, because even though the Slytherins followed instructions much better than the Hufflepuffs did, every mistake a Hufflepuff made was forgiven or somehow blamed on a green-tied student. The moment she was out of the Potions teacher's sight, Kurania punched a wall and gritted her teeth so hard they hurt, strangling the angry mumblings she had before they could reach anyone's ears.

Opal, Denise, and Lyra hurried on to their next class, Charms, while Christine stayed by Kurania until the red-haired girl let out a final sigh and slumped against the wall. "C'mon, we don't want to be late for class." She said, not looking Kurania in the eye the entire way. Charms was much higher in the school than the Great Hall, and the two tripped and swore up several flights of stairs before reaching the classroom. Entering it, Kurania was reminded of a choir room. The seats around the edge of the room were on raised steps, and most of the seats were taken. This class looked to be a Gryffindor and Slytherin class, and Hidan waved eagerly at her to sit in the empty space beside him when he noticed Kurania in the doorway. On Hidan's other side, Teddy Lupin began to argue.

Kurania wasn't in the mood to deal with anyone's stupidity at this point, though, so she and Christine joined the other members of their house in the corner of the room. For several minutes, she looked around wondering what kind of a class this would be, and what sort of a teacher would be coming through the door. And then, an incredibly tiny but obviously ancient man popped out of a pile of books. Kurania was so startled she fell off her seat and didn't understand a word of the ridiculously high-pitched welcoming speech. Nonetheless, she knew from last night that the Charms professor's name was Flitwick, and hoped fervently that Pluto had the job soon. How could she learn anything from a chipmunk-voiced teacher?

That's how she felt anyway, until roll call, when the teacher calmed enough to speak in a way that was comprehensible by humans. He did not say the Slytherin names any differently... until he reached hers. Actually, it took a moment for him to change his tone, because he started off by saying, "Oh, how do you pronounce this... I'm very sorry, Miss Riddle, but..." He broke off, eyes widening suddenly.

Uncertainly, Kurania told him her first name. As soon as she'd said it, Professor Flitwick gave her an incredibly cold look. Kurania's head jerked back at the abruptness, and she wondered what about her name had angered the little man. He didn't give her the chance to ask, but instead hurried on with the other names on the list as if he'd never glared at her. They spent the class period trying to make feathers fly, but the second Kurania'd gotten her feather off the table, Professor Flitwick asked her to try lifting one of his books. He insisted that it was just a fun challenge, but he did not offer to give a book to anyone else. Hidan tried to ask for one, looking at Kurania's quite jealously, but a Gryffindor girl shut him up fairly quickly. After a moment of staring, Kurania recognized the girl as the person who had tried to rescue Hidan at the lake.

At the very end of class, Flitwick deducted ten points from Slytherin, claiming that Kurania had not made the slightest effort to levitate the book. With that bit of unfairness, Kurania was prepared to punch another wall, but Teddy Lupin had to add icing to the cake. Hidan had come over when class was dismissed and brightly asked, "How are you doing? I got that teacher in trouble for grabbing your arm. You'll probably still have to deal with him though, he's the only person qualified to teach magical history in the country, 'cause apparently this boring ghost has been teaching it for forty years and so nobody but Kolberts was ever interested in taking the job from him, and somebody exorcised the ghost teacher on accident a couple of years ago so he can't have the job back. Don't worry though, this year we'll have history together too and if he does anything mean we'll get him fired!"

Teddy, who had waited up for him, snorted. "Don't bother, Hidan. Professor Kolberts had a good reason for what he did, even if he's not allowed to tell students what it is." The blue-and-pink haired boy gave Kurania a disgusted look.

"I already told you, I'm not going to hate her just because she's in Slytherin."

"Oh, it's not about Slytherin. She'd be hated no matter what house she got into." Teddy told him.

Kurania stared at the boy, thinking of the way Flitwick had acted. He did not seem to hate Slytherin as a whole, the way Clay did, but he clearly disliked her. "What do you mean by that? Why?"

Teddy sneered. "Quit pretending you don't know - I couldn't answer you in a classroom anyway. McGonagall doesn't want anyone panicking, and there's no way anybody'd want their kid going to school with _you_." With that, he dragged Hidan out of the classroom. It took Kurania a little while to follow after, but she didn't head towards the Great Hall for lunch. Near the end of the Charms hallway was a bathroom, and Kurania rushed into it. It looked rather decrepit, with mold growing on the walls, cracked mirrors, and a tap pouring water. Kurania tried to turn it off, but it seemed stuck and she let it be. She walked around the circle of sinks, picking out the least cracked mirror and then wiped it with her sleeve until she could clearly see her reflection. She looked as she normally did - dark hair in a reddish shade of mahogany falling straight to her elbows, parting line to the left, brow wrinkled from confusion, dark eyes ringed by red, thin lips pressed tightly together. There wasn't a neon sign over her head or on her forehead or anywhere else, as far as she could see, that would explain why Flitwick had glared at the sight of her.

"What are you doing in here?" A squeaky voice demanded, and Kurania blinked a tear.

"Um, nothing." She mumbled, wiping the drop of water away quickly.

"Are you alright?" The voice asked again, much more soft.

Kurania looked in the direction of the voice, and noticed that it seemed to be coming from a toilet stall. Although she'd meant to say 'yes', what came out was, "Everybody hates me and I don't know why. I thought maybe someone had hexed my face or something, but I look normal. So why?" She asked, tearing up even more. A part of her scolded her for being such a drama queen, and reminded her that three teachers and a rainbow-haired boy were not 'everybody', but the greater majority of her didn't care. Kurania did not want to be correct; she wanted to be pitied.

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_**End Notes: I was going to write much more in this chapter, but it'll probably be fine as is. If you have any complaints, suggestions, comments... Please send in a review! Thanks to my most loyal reviewer for teacher names, I'm truly sorry I took so long to update this! RMI is sort of taking over my life... In a good way, of course!**_

**_30th of December's my birthday :) I might have already said that, but I'd love to have some reviews for my birthday!_**


	7. From Myrtle to Hagrid

_**Author's Note: Thank you BotheredOne7 and Adsy for your reviews and alerts/favorites, thank you LovelyEndingsAndLateStarts and Okinawa Angel for putting me on your alerts! I had kind of hoped this chapter would come out on my birthday, and then hoped it would come out on New Year's Eve, but I had some trouble with it. Sorry? Although I think I can partially blame the fact that the only people who reviewed were the people I asked to, and more people read this story on the day that last chapter came out than I've ever had view on a day... if this isn't good enough to review you could at least flame me!**_

_**Okay, pity party moment over. On with the chapter!**_

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"Why do you think everyone hates you?" The other girl asked, and her voice sounded closer. Kurania didn't look, although she wondered why the stall door hadn't creaked. Instead she focused on an odd little shape on the side of the sink's faucet, suddenly ashamed to have spoken like that out loud.

"I - there's no reason, I'm just being silly. Sorry to bother you." Kurania said, and turned around to hurry out of the bathroom.

Her shoulder suddenly felt as if it'd had a bucket of water poured on it, and Kurania stopped and turned to look. A see-through hand sat on - and partially in - her shoulder. "Come now, there's got to be some kind of -"

Kurania squawked and leapt away. "G-ghost!" She gasped, staring. The other girl was floating a little in midair, and Kurania could see a stall on the other side. The ghostly girl wore the usual Hogwarts uniform and had dark hair in pigtails, with circular old-fashioned glasses. The look on her face was pained, and Kurania immediately apologized. "I'm so sorry! I just... I haven't really seen a ghost up close before, I didn't mean to insult you!"

The other girl studied Kurania for a moment. "You didn't mean to insult me?" She repeated after a long pause, and her eyes filled with shining tears. Kurania took a couple of steps forward and held her hand right above a ghostly shoulder.

"I'm really sorry - I didn't mean to be insensitive." The best reason Kurania could come up with for the dark-haired ghost's tears was that she tried to forget she was dead most of the time and it was a painful reminder. "Please don't cry." She begged. "Forget I said anything."

"Don't cry? Quit pretending to care! Nobody cared if I cried when I was alive, and nobody cares now I'm dead!" The ghost howled, tears pouring out of her eyes. She turned away and flew through a stall door. "Nobody ever cares about poor, miserable, moping Myrtle! So just go away! Leave me alone..."

Kurania stared after her, completely shocked. For a moment, she thought about doing as Myrtle asked, but on the word 'alone', Myrtle's voice had cracked and Kurania was quite sure that leaving now was the wrong thing to do. So, she walked over to Myrtle's stall and said gently, "You don't really want to be alone here, do you?"

"It doesn't matter what I want! Nobody ever comes to see me unless they want something. Then they'll promise to come back and they _never_ do!"

"I don't want anything from you," Kurania told her. "except for you to forgive me for upsetting you. I'll come every day, if you want me to!"

"Ha!" Myrtle snorted. "You say that, but you won't."

"I really will!"

"Then prove it! Come back to visit tomorrow." Myrtle snapped. "But don't think I'll forgive you, because I know you're just agreeing to come back so that you can hurt me even more!"

"I don't want to hurt you." Kurania reassured her. "And I will see you tomorrow, okay?" Myrtle made an irritable noise, and Kurania took it as assent and left. About two hallways further, she met up with the Slytherin girls who seemed to be looking for her. They were a little annoyed that she had ran off to the bathroom, and Lyra again reminded her about Pluto's advice, but they let it go soon enough. Lunch was very tasty, and Kurania made sure not to grab something that would leave crumbs all over her. As the Slytherins headed out of the Great Hall, Gabriel asked her, "Why were you late?"

"I... had to use the restroom." She said uncomfortably. It didn't feel right at all to say such a thing to a boy.

"Not Myrtle's?" He asked, sounding oddly sympathetic. Kurania wondered where he'd heard about her from, seeing as he was a boy, but many of the Slytherin students seemed to have lots of relatives to share Hogwart's secrets with them.

"Is she always in there?" Kurania asked, disregarding his tone of voice, thinking that he was sick or something.

"Well, yeah. Nobody else ever goes in there because of her. Bad luck to meet her your first day." Gabriel sighed, patting her on the back.

Kurania stopped walking, and the others stopped with her. They were right next to the doors. "What do you mean, nobody goes in there? And why would it be bad luck?"

"Well, she's awful, isn't she? Hollering at everyone, making fun of people, flooding her bathroom all the time." Denise sniffed.

Kurania scowled. "She was perfectly nice to me, and I wish you wouldn't talk like that about her when you haven't even met her."

"What do you mean, she was nice to you? My sister says that she's rude to everyone!" Roderick argued.

"She was very nice when I was crying!" Kurania insisted, wincing once she'd realized what she had said. She didn't like to be thought of as a weak person, and tears were a definite sign of weakness.

"You were crying?" A worried voice asked. Roderick, Gabriel and the other three boys quickly pulled out their wands, and Kurania spun around to glare at Hidan.

"It's none of your business!" She snapped. "Shoo!" _You're such a moron,_ she told him mentally. _You were there when Teddy insulted me and you didn't say a thing. _

"Kurania..." He mumbled, looking hurt. And then Aoife O'Connell, the girl that had tried to save Hidan in the lake, appeared on the scene.

She looked absolutely furious. "How dare you talk to Hidan like that?" O'Connell spat at Kurania, her frizzy black hair crackling around her head like a storm.

The look on Hidan's face was absolutely priceless, and only became worse as Christine decided to pitch in. "She dares to talk to him like that because they grew up together. She's got much more of a right to talk to this albino than you do, seeing as you didn't even know." Kurania gave her a look at the 'albino' part, but had to let it go because O'Connell began sputtering.

"Let's get to class, we've got Herbology." A first-year Slytherin boy whose name Kurania did not know spoke up. On the way to the greenhouse, he introduced himself as Philip Langely and the other boys as Orion Smith and Casey Madison. Kurania could've smacked herself for forgetting Orion; he was Lyra's twin, after all, and had introduced himself when he asked Pluto a question. The grounds at Hogwarts were very interesting, and as the Slytherins approached the greenhouses the wind brought voices from the direction of a rather depressing-looking forest. Kurania couldn't make out the exact words, but it sounded like English to her. She wondered if she'd have time to look around there later, because she could've sworn the voices were discussing hunting, and she didn't think that was legal so close to a school.

The first time Kurania had met Professor Longbottom, he'd scared her. Admittedly, she'd been doing something rather cruel and stupid but nonetheless, she hadn't anticipated how different he would be as a teacher. Before, he had been very serious and hadn't smiled much at all. In class, though, he never seemed to stop smiling, and made several jokes. He didn't treat Slytherins any worse than Ravenclaws, and gave Kurania five points for helping with a demonstration. Kurania would have declared it her favorite class if she hadn't gotten poop in her hair - and not just any poop, dragon poop. Why such a thing was used as fertilizer, Kurania didn't want to know. She just wanted to be _clean_. After she'd gotten her shower, she worked on her homework with Lyra and Orion. She went to bed rather early that day, hoping that her other teachers would be like Professor Longbottom (but without any dragon poop in their classrooms).

Unfortunately, fate seemed to be out to get her. The Transfiguration teacher, Professor Karlin, was a rude woman that seemed to hate Slytherins, and although she did not single Kurania out for punishment, she continually gave her a look as if she was trying to decipher her. It made Kurania highly uncomfortable, and she was happy to escape her classroom. However, History proved to be far worse; Hidan had told her that the teacher that grabbed her when she got her schedule was the History professor, and had promised that she had the class with Gryffindors. Kurania should have been able to guess how the class was going to go, but as usual, Hidan's words slipped her mind nearly as quickly as he'd said them. This time though, she regretted ignoring him.

Professor Kolberts gave out three detentions in the first five minutes of class - to Christine, for wearing makeup; to Roderick, for having dirt on his nose; and to Kurania, for failure to reply to attendance. By the end of class, Denise was the only Slytherin who did not have detention for one unreasonable reason or another, and Kurania had two week's worth. Philip Langely was sent to Professor McGonagall for calling Kolberts a squib, and though Kurania didn't know what that was she hoped it meant something awful. A few minutes after leaving the room, she and Christine burst into tears and ran for a bathroom. Once they'd calmed down, Kurania talked her into visiting Myrtle.

Christine didn't like the look of the bathroom, that much was obvious. She deigned to wait outside rather than, as she put it, "Risk life-threatening illness by breathing in that awful mold!" Myrtle was surprised to see Kurania, but she refused to forgive her or talk politely. Kurania would have tried to stay there until Myrtle would listen to her apology properly, but Christine's scream from behind the door stopped her short. Kurania hurried out the door, and was hit by a beam of red light almost instantly.

Two hours later the effects of the third year Gryffindor's hex had faded completely, but Pluto's anger hadn't. "I told you all to stay in a group!" He told all five Slytherin girls. "I meant you all had to stay _together_, not divide up into groups of two and three! What would have happened if I hadn't came by when I did? Christine and Kurania might have been seriously injured! If there had been five of you, he might not even have attacked!" All the girls could do was look at their feet and hope he'd get sick of lecturing soon enough. However, Plue intended to be a teacher some day and seemed more than happy to talk for hours at a stretch, and although it got quite repetitive, Kurania thought that most teachers repeated themselves a lot too. All in all, he seemed quite prepared for the job and Kurania told him so. That led to a lecture on brown nosing, which was cut short when the Hospital Wing's matron came over and threw them all out.

Later that evening, when Denise explained had explained everything to Charon and he had translated for the others, Kurania had to put up with another lecture. This one was about putting up with stupid people rather than sicking her three lovely poisonous snakes on them, and she had to explain to them once again why killing was wrong. Overall she was quite frustrated by bedtime and had a rather hard time sleeping. The dreams she had that night weren't quite as odd as her normal ones, but they all featured a large black shadow stretching far behind her, regardless of where the lighting was.

The next day had one good part to it: Defense Against the Dark Arts. The teacher, Veronica Hansen, was a cheerful young woman that was quick to insist that everyone call her by her first name. She was perhaps a little more cold towards the Slytherins, but still awarded points fairly and helped everyone with their first DADA assignment. The assignment was the part Kurania enjoyed; in a way, it was mindblowing. She had heard of Dodo birds, but had thought they were extinct, and yet she was being asked to catch one. Apparently they were actually Diricrawls, and could teleport. The teacher had hexed the room so that the Diricrawls would not be able to teleport out, but it was still nearly impossible to get ahold of one. At the end of class, the only people who had successfully caught one were Kurania and a Hufflepuff boy named Edmund. They each recieved ten points, and seven or so others who had nearly managed to catch a Diricrawl recieved five. Kurania ended up staying after for a few minutes to ask about other magical creatures, which completely surprised the teacher.

"You're Muggleborn?" She asked her, and then hurried to say, "I mean, I have nothing against that of course, but, what with being in Slytherin and all, it's quite unexpected..." Veronica answered some of her questions, but shooed her out soon enough with a book titled 'Fantastical Beasts and Where to Find Them'.

That evening yielded many surprises. Because she had been hexed the day before, and had spent part of the day in the Hospital Wing, her detentions with Kolberts had been set to start that night. However, an anonymous student (Hidan, no doubt) had reminded Headmistress McGonagall that Kolberts had harrassed Kurania on the first day of school and so she was assigned to help another teacher, a Professor Hagrid, instead. He taught Care of Magical Creatures, a class that could only be taken by third years and above, so Kurania had expected him to be a completely unfamiliar person. However, Professor Hagrid turned out to be the gigantuan and hairy person that had accompanied the first years across the lake.

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_**End Notes: I was tempted to write out Kurania's full detention here, but the next chapter needs some padding and it'll work better there anyway. Any guesses at how things'll go? And has anyone figured out the halloween surprise yet? I looked back, and I just about stated it outright! I mean, not specifically but I made it easy to guess... there's some long-term foreshadowing in this chapter too. Sorry that all the teachers hate Kurania, but that's kind of important. In the books we see that the Wizarding world is very fickle as a whole, and I just couldn't see them letting Slytherins go back to normal after what happened. I know that Slytherins were still respectable after the first time Voldemort fell, but he didn't make it to Hogwarts that time - the second time would be much more personal for the teachers.**_

_**Thank you for reading this chapter of KatSL! I really hope you'll review me your opinions and any corrections that you might have, I really don't care if you're not logged in or you don't have much to say. I'd prefer a lengthy review, but even a short one makes me know that people are actually reading through the whole story!**_


	8. Invisible Horses and Demonic Unicorns

_**Author's Note: Good (Morning, Afternoon, Evening) everyone, the Earth says hello! Or, at least, I say hello. I changed the story summary because it occured to me that she's not really hiding the fact she's a Parselmouth. Hidan, Professor Longbottom, Roselynn Andersen, Denise Zabini etc. already know, and even more people learn in this chapter** **and the next! I'm not so sure about the new summary, though, so if anybody has suggestions I would be more than happy to use them. By the way, when I get past Kurania's first year (if I get past Kurania's first year), I will be posting her second as a different story, probably with the title 'Kurania and the Vengeance' or something similiarly ridiculous. If I can come up with a better way to hint at the plot of that story I will, I promise, but for now that's all that comes to mind. I have quite a long time before I really need to worry about it, though!**_

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When Kurania thought of the word 'detention', images of bored students sitting around a silent classroom came to mind. She wasn't sure if she should be delighted or annoyed that things were quite different at Hogwarts. It seemed that a typical detention involved writing lines or cleaning - and there were a lot of things for troublesome students to clean, like trophies, bed pans, or cauldrons. However, she thought that detention with Hagrid must be very different, as he lived in a small cottage with a large smokestack far from the castle, on the edge of the forest. Right after dinner, Kurania walked down to his little house to meet him.

"So yer Miss Riddle?" He asked, coming around the building. Professor Hagrid's dark eyes were very serious, as was his expression. From the wrinkles around his eyes, Kurania supposed that smiling was far more like him and wondered once again what so many people disliked about her.

"Kurania, yeah." She said uncomfortably. "Um, so, what's the detention?" She was wondering if she was going to have to wash Professor Hagrid's dishes or something, since most of the detentions she had heard about from Slytherins involved cleaning in some way.

"Yeh'll be helpin' me feed some things in the forest." He told her, frowning a little.

Kurania blinked. "You mean, like magical creatures and stuff? I get to feed them?"

Professor Hagrid looked surprised. "Yeh sound too happy for a girl in detention." He said, but nearly smiled himself. "Most o' the Slytherins I take in the forest complain a fair bit once they know that's where we're goin'."

"Why?"

"Their cousins tell 'em that werewolves live in there." The giant replied.

It took Kurania a moment to reply, as horrified as she was. "Werewolves are_ real_?!" She exclaimed. Her first thought on the matter was that such a thing wouldn't be around a school; her second was that she hadn't been given anything silver.

"Yeh didn't know tha' already?"

"Well, no! Professor Longbottom never said anything about werewolves..." She glanced over at the crescent moon sitting on the horizon. "But... I mean, if the stories about them are true, than they'd be normal people right now."

"Werewolves are only a danger durin' the full moon." He confirmed. "Were yeh raised by Muggles, Kurania?"

"Yes." She answered, frowning at him. "I've been told that's strange for a Slytherin already." Kurania added.

Professor Hagrid nodded, and his brow furrowed while he looked around. "Well, let's get to work. I'll take this bag, you take that 'un." The first bag was about five times larger, but the second had blood leaking out.

"Raw meat?" She asked curiously as she picked it up gingerly. Kurania had killed rats to bribe snakes with before, and wasn't too squeamish. Nonetheless, she was embarressed enough by bread crumbs on her robes. Blood stains would be far more irksome.

"Yup. Thestrals like it bloody."

"Thestrals?" She asked, following after the grey-bearded man. He didn't answer her question, but led her around the forest and then a little ways in, to a clearing. They set out the meat on the ground, and then Professor Hagrid gave a loud whistle. Kurania waited for something to appear, looking around nervously for several minutes. "I think you need to whistle again." She told him.

"Yeh can't see 'em?"

"See what?" The Care of Magical Creatures teacher pointed at the pile of raw meat. Kurania stared at it a moment before she registered that it was disappearing before her very eyes. "So... thestrals are invisible?" She asked, looking towards the teacher.

"Well, no' exactly. Yeh can only see 'em if yeh've seen someone die." He told her.

"Oh..." She mumbled. After a couple moments, "You can see them, though? What do they look like?"

"Black, skeletal horses," Professor Hagrid explained. "with bat's wings."

"Can you touch them,even if you can't see them or are they inter-inta- untouchable?" Kurania scowled at her own failure to remember the word she'd wanted to use.

"Yeah, yeh can." He replied, and then suddenly asked, "D'yeh want to ride one?"

"_Ride one_? You can _do_ that?!"

"Yeah - C'mere." He told her, and once she was close enough he lifted her right up as if she weighed nothing at all, setting her on something bony. Kurania looked down as Hagrid stepped away and she yelped.

"OmigoshI'mfloating!" She announced, closing her eyes tightly. Whatever she was on moved a little, and she gently reached around to try and figure out what she could about the thestral. It had very soft skin that practically hung off of large bones, and Kurania couldn't help saying, "I think this one needs more food, it's thin as a stick." although she was fairly certain that if a normal horse was this bony it would've already been dead.

Professor Hagrid laughed. "Bein' stickish is in their natures." He taught her a little bit about riding a thestral, which wasn't easy as Kurania insisted on keeping her eyes closed the entire time, and then Hagrid remembered that it was supposed to be a detention and they went back to the hut before feeding a few other less interesting and quite visible animals, including the giant squid in the lake.

"I wish it had eaten Hidan." She said wistfully, watching as it took the meat she gave it.

"Yeh don't really wish that." Professor Hagrid said, abruptly quite worried.

Kurania gave him an odd look. "Well, of course not!"

There was silence for a couple of seconds. "Professor Longbottom told me that yeh can talk to snakes." He finally said.

It took Kurania a moment to understand, and then she quickly defended her actions. "I didn't want to kill Hidan with that, just scare him so that he'd stop picking on me all the time. He'd been driving me crazy with pranks for months, and everyone just kept encouraging him! I was mad so I set up that trap, but I made sure that the snakes wouldn't hurt him once he'd fallen in!"

Professor Hagrid studied Kurania's face for a moment. "Neville didn't say anythin' about a trap, he just told me tha' yeh could speak with 'em."

That startled her. "He didn't tell anyone about that?"

"There are already folk that don't want yeh here; the Headmistress wouldn'ta let yeh attend Hogwarts if she'd known yeh had almost killed a kid."

"I didn't almost kill him." She said, frustrated. "And why don't people want me here? Is there something wrong with me?"

Professor Hagrid grimaced. "Yeh really don't know, do yeh?" He sighed as Kurania shook her head. "Well... fer most folk, it's about yer last name. A long time ago, there was a boy named Tom Riddle 'ere at Hogwarts. It'll take too long to tell yeh the whole story, but he was a murderer o' the worst - have yeh met Moanin' Myrtle yet?" He interrupted himself to ask.

"I've met Myrtle." Kurania replied, not getting what the ghost had to do with anything. "Wait... are you saying _he_ killed her?"

Professor Hagrid nodded. "He did. 'S not well known, but he used a snake to do it. He could speak to 'em, too."

"But... what does that have to do with me? Do they think I'm him in disguise or something?"

The teacher's eyes widened dramatically, and then he bent in two laughing. Kurania watched him, feeling rather insulted that her idea amused him so much. "Nah, he's dead." He told her, once he had control of himself again. "Died ten years ago, 'smatter of fact... Folk think yeh might be his daughter. I don't think its likely, though, he went to school with _me_." Professor Hagrid frowned down at his graying beard. "He couldn'ta been havin' kids at that age!"

But Kurania didn't hear much of what he said after 'yeh might be his daughter'. She had wondered a fair few times what her real parents were like, but it had never occurred to her to imagine that her father was a serial killer. For a couple of minutes she stood still, trying to process that bombshell. "But - but it shouldn't matter who my parents are!" She argued desperately. "I mean, they shouldn't hold that against me! It's not like I've ever met my parents!"

Professor Hagrid hestitated, and then looked her right in the eye. "Folks shouldn't hold it against yeh." He agreed. "But life isn't fair, and folk aren't always nice."

With that piece of advice, he cut off the conversation and led her back to the castle, declaring her detention over for the night. It was quite late and Lyra and Denise were already asleep, but although Kurania felt very tired Hagrid's words were burnt into her mind. If she slept that night, she didn't dream of anything. In the morning, Denise was quite worried about the rings around her eyes but Kurania wouldn't tell her anything about the detention. She had one again that evening, and she passed that day in a daze right up until she walked out of charms. At that point, she realized that she hadn't gone to see Myrtle the day before at all and hurried in to see her, leaving the other Slytherins quite exasperated. Hidan also seemed annoyed, but Kurania had been ignoring him all day.

"Myrtle?" She called as she walked in. "I'm sorry, I was kind of busy yesterday-"

"You... what are you doing here?" The ghost asked, looking dumbstruck.

"... Apologizing?" Kurania said awkwardly.

The ghost girl shook herself out of her frozen state. "I meant, why are you here again? You got bored of trying to pick on me and didn't come yesterday, so why come today?" The girl asked angrily.

"I didn't get bored! I... had a detention." In truth she had several hours between her last class and dinner that she could have used to visit Myrtle, but she didn't saying so would earn her any points. "I promised I'd come every day, and I will!"

Myrtle threw her a frustrated look. "Just get bored and go away already!"

"What's your favorite color?" Kurania shot back.

"Blue!" Came the automatic reply, and then, "Why do you ask?"

"I want to get to know you." She explained. "I'm getting the feeling I'll be in here a lot, and I'd like to have something to talk about. I'm not sure I told you my name before, sorry about that, but I'm Kurania R-" She broke off, remembering that a Riddle had killed Myrtle."-and red's my favorite color." She corrected herself. It wasn't, actually; she liked brown far more. Still, it was less suspicious to begin a word with 'r' in it and then change if the sentence was about something with 'r' as the first letter.

Myrtle chased her out with toilet water soon enough, but not before Kurania learned that Myrtle had been a Ravenclaw; had been Muggleborn; hated all of her classes when she could still attend them; did not like animals; and had been born on the twenty-fourth of November. Kurania wasn't sure what she could do to celebrate a ghost's birthday, but she did have more than enough time to figure it out.

After dinner, she once again had detention with Professor Hagrid, although this time he asked her to help practice a lesson for his third years. Although he assured her that there wasn't any danger, Kurania had read much of the book Veronica had given her and was quite certain that unicorns weren't nearly as defenseless as they looked.

"Just look at those horns! They're obviously meant for stabbing!" She insisted, but Hagrid laughed it off. On Friday, she helped to feed the thestrals again, as well as the giant squid. Professor Hagrid also showed her a three-headed snake that he called a Runespoor. Kurania thought that it should have been called Confused, but she didn't argue over it.

Instead, she argued with one of its heads. "I am not a goddess." She told the middle head quite firmly. The other two seemed fast asleep.

"What else could you be, shining as brightly as you do? You look human, but you smell and speak like a snake. I suppose that means humans have things right after all. Clearly they are molded in the shape of the gods!"

"You're insane!" She snapped at the snake. "I'm completely human. Your nose must be confused, I don't smell anything like a snake!"

"Such a lovely hiss," The snake spoke dreamily. "Although I do not understand the goddess's wisdom, I greatly admire her voice..."

On Saturday evening, Kurania had her first Astronomy lesson with Professor Dagsworth. The class was a mixture of Ravenclaw and Slytherin, and when Dagsworth asked that each student locate one constellation they knew well, light babble broke out.

"My sister's named after that one," and "There's my father's star!" Were the most common statements made. Lyra pointed out her constellation to Kurania, and Orion pointed out his. Professor Dagsworth directed everyone's attention to the star she was named for, Alphekka, and Denise tried to argue that Kurania was an odd form of Corona.

"The only reason wizards learn about stars is so they'll have an idea of what to name their kids." Calliope Bulstrode, a Ravenclaw, announced. Professor Dagsworth merely smirked at her.

Kurania still had detentions over the weekend, but she showed up hours earlier than she needed to, quite excited to see what sort of creature she would meet next. Kuraniamanaged to squeeze in a few minutes for Myrtle every day, and did not spend much time lazing around. She didn't notice the message announcing flying lessons until Christine began babbling about it - none of the other Slytherins really cared. As it turned out, Kurania and Christine were the only ones that had never flown before and both became quite anxious as Wednesday neared. An hour before the lessons were to start, the two were wound up enough that even Myrtle took pity on them and gave them tips on flying, both with a broomstick and without.

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_**End Notes: Writing Hagrid is confusing, so I'm really sorry if I screwed that up. I had planned to stick everything in this chapter right up til the day before Halloween, and start on that next chapter, but I had no idea how long her detention was going to be. It's super important though, so I don't regret putting off Halloween. It may still make it into the next chapter, though there's no guarantee.**_


	9. Of Flying Lessons

_**Author's Note: Welcome back to another chapter of KatSL! I'm kind of doubtful anyone's reading this, but I felt like writing. I really want to write out all that I've planned for Kurania! That won't be enough to make it through the whole story, but I'll get as far as I can. Reviews would be super-duper amazing for me, so don't be stingy with them!**_

_**EDIT: Thanks to Ellie717 for your review and for adding me to alerts! Also, did anyone know that dogs have a ridge on their cranium like monkeys? It's weird to pet it with your foot...**_

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Leslie McCoffrey was easily the strangest-looking person Kurania had ever seen. She had graying brown hair in dreadlocks down to her waist, bright red eyes glinting maliciously, and had arms thicker than a gorilla's. It was this woman that stood in front of the first year Hufflepuffs and Slytherins at four in the afternoon on Wednesday.

"Hullo, brats!" She chirped. "There's no fighting allowed, so I want wimps to line up here," she gestured at one line of brooms, "and Slytherins over here!" There were cries of protest from the Hufflepuffs, but Kurania and Christine exchanged awed looks and quickly took spots beside a broom. They leaned to pick them up, but other Slytherins stopped them. Not a moment later, McCoffrey yelled, "Put that broom back down, wimp! Are you a muggle, bending over to pick it up... that's not how you take up a broom!"She stood beside her own, raised a hand over it, and snapped, "Up!"

Kurania blinked as the broom flew right up, and gave it a shot herself while McCoffrey gave further instruction. "Once the broom's in your hand, I want you to sit on it and wait until the wimps are ready. If you're having trouble getting the broom to answer you, its because you're a crybaby and you don't _want_ to fly." Kurania's first couple attempts failed while McCoffrey was talking. 'I want to fly,' she thought hopefully, and her third attempt got the broom into the air. It didn't quite reach her hand but she snatched it up before it could fall and grimaced.

Floating on the broom was almost as scary as sitting on a thestral: in both cases, Kurania couldn't tell what exactly was supporting her. This time though, she couldn't close her eyes and imagine that her support was actually visible because she couldn't feel anything between the broom and ground. Her nervousness had a sort of domino effect - because she didn't go as high as the other Slytherins, McCoffrey declared her a wimp and bellowed at her. Because McCoffrey was loud, Kurania was startled off her broom. Because she fell, Christine panicked and performed a barrel roll; McCoffrey telling her, "That's a great move!" Scared her into nosediving into Kurania, who had just gotten back on her broom. One stupid Hufflepuff girl with enough makeup to worry a clown thought they'd done it on purpose, and leapt off her broom to scold them, fracturing her ankle when she tried to land on it. There were many more injuries, and McCoffrey didn't help things at all. She claimed that wimpiness was the true cause of their bruises and broken bones, and tried to make everyone get back on their brooms. Many people limped off the pitch before class was over, leaning on their housemates.

Denise, Roderick and Opal were completely unhurt, and were too busy laughing to notice when Kurania and Orion accompanied the others to the Hospital Wing. All of the Hufflepuffs sat around in there, trying not to distract the matron from cussing her colleague out under her breath because she appeared ready to tear someone, _anyone_'s head off. There was only one person who was not in the last Flying lessons class in the Hospital Wing, and Kurania nearly snorted when she realized that it was Roselyn Andersen. Someone had written 'boyfriend stealer' across her face in two rows of vividly green boils, but Roselyn seemed oddly happy. She was twirling a red rose in front of her face, humming one of Taylor Swift's happier songs, and barely noticed when Kurania walked up beside her. She wasn't sure what to say, but Edmund the Hufflepuff spoke to Roselyn first from the next cot.

"My sister do that hex?" He wanted to know.

Roselyn smiled. "Yes - can you believe it?"

"No - Roald's way too nice for you." Edmund snorted. "I mean, he's too nice for sin, too, but still." He'd actually said Cyn, but at the time Kurania did not know that and was very confused.

"Aren't you a bit young for dating drama?" Kurania asked Roselyn, a little annoyed. "You're only thirteen."

"And you're only eleven, snake-freak! Don't try to tell me what I can and can't do!" Kurania was a little surprised at the suddenness of Roselyn's anger. "And tell that albino annoyance to leave me alone already, I'd have had Roald last week if he hadn't been clinging to me all the time!"

"I'm not Hidan's babysitter." Kurania reminded the older girl irritably before walking away. After the Slytherins had been released from the Hospital Wing Kurania, Christine, Lyra and Orion went to the library to work on essays for Professor Clay until dinner. Afterwards, Kurania gathered up her snakes and ran down to Hagrid's for her final detention. Hagrid had mentioned an interest in meeting Charon, Deidei and Kinnyoa after Kurania had talked about them, and the three were also quite interested in the half-giant.

The next morning, Kurania woke up screaming from an awful nightmare where all sorts of people spoke at once and dressed in bright colors and smothered her with them. Opal Anders offered her some makeup to cover up the rings around her eyes, but Kurania didn't really care about the way she looked. DADA wasn't as much fun this time around, but it was very practical.

"Got an annoying little sibling? A snoring roommate? An angry aunt? A yappy puppy? Well, I've got just the spell for you!" Veronica began the class by announcing. Kurania wasn't amused by the way the teacher sounded like an advertisement, at least not until she said, "The Silencing charm!" And then Kurania was all ears. A spell that could shut people up was a spell that she very much needed, with Denise and Hidan running around. Of course, Veronica had to pair Hufflepuffs with Slytherins for this lesson, and Kurania's partner looked such a mess that she couldn't stand to jinx her and was Silencio'd so hard she stumbled backwards and knocked Lyra over. At least Myrtle thought it was funny.

Actually, Myrtle was astonishingly easy to talk to that day, and Kurania ended up skipping lunch. Kurania was quite glad that she had stumbled upon one of Myrtle's favorite topics while talking about flying lessons; bullying.

"I came in here to cry every time someone insulted me." She informed Kurania. "That's why I was in here, the day I died. Oh, she regretted her cruel words so much, once I'd started haunting her... I flooded every bathroom or kitchen she set foot in for years! She became frightened of water, it was just hilarious..."

"It sounds kind of like dying was a good thing for you." Kurania said without thinking, and then hurriedly added, "Now you can make people pay if they bother you, instead of having to go cry about it."

Myrtle grimaced. "If only that were true... I can't leave Hogwarts, not any more. I was nearly exorcised after ruining a wedding, and now I'm stuck here. Elsewise I'd make Harry Potter pay for breaking his promise!"

"Harry Potter? The famous guy who murdered a murderer?" Kurania thought for a moment. "Did he promise to come back to see you? Is that why it's so hard for you to trust me?"

Myrtle nodded miserably. "He's not the only one who said that, but he kept it a little better than the others. Every couple of years he would run into me somewhere, but I always had to go looking for him rather than him come to see me." She sighed forlornly. "He seemed so nice, and so cute..."

Kurania cast about for a way to cheer her up. "I heard from someone that he comes and lectures for DADA classes once in a while; maybe you could irk him then?"

The once-Ravenclaw's eyes lit up. "I could ruin his class!" She said excitedly. "Flood the entire DADA floor, Make a mess of whatever room he stays in - it'll be lovely! He'll regret never coming to see me!"

After her final class of the day, Kurania noticed that Ravenclaw and Gryffindor first years were heading towards the Quidditch pitch and talked several other Slytherins into coming with her, and Christine ran to grab her camera. "You never know when you'll need blackmail." She told Kurania with a smirk. When Teddy Lupin noticed that Slytherins were watching the lesson, he tried to complain to McCoffrey. She was quite pleased to see Roderick, as one of the few non-wimps she'd seen thus far, and was more than willing to allow the Slytherins to watch. Most of the Gryffindors didn't notice that quickly, though.

Kurania had known quite well that Hidan was scared of heights and that had been the main reason she had wanted to watch his first lesson. It was even more amusing than she'd expected, watching him squeak the second the broom moved more than two feet away from the ground. When McCoffrey bellowed at him that he was a useless, cowardly wimp, he yelled right back that she was an over-muscled cow that nobody would ever want to marry. Their insult competition was highly amusing and became more and more creative as it went on, and Kurania just about fell over laughing.

"How dare you laugh at Hidan!" A familiarly angry voice snapped at her, and Kurania looked up to see O'Connell reaching for her wand.

Kurania was much quicker. "_Densaugeo!_" She yelled the first spell that came to mind. The Gryffindor stared for a moment, and then grabbed at her face suddenly as her teeth began growing at an alarming pace.

"You're not allowed to hex each other!" McCoffrey interrupted one of her insults to yell at Kurania. "But, that's a pretty neat spell! Guess you're not as much of a wimp as I thought. Any idea how to undo that spell?"

"Er, no?"

"Right, then, we'd better take her to the Hospital Wing." McCoffrey put Roderick in charge of the class and threw O'Connell over one shoulder, dragging Kurania along with the other arm.

"Uh heh oo!" O'Connell managed to say despite her teeth, glaring at Kurania.

The mahogany-haired girl couldn't help snickering, although she knew she'd get hell for this. She really hoped that Christine had taken a picture.

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_**End Notes: Please review! I like to wait for story stats to tell me twenty people viewed my most recent chapter before I post the next one, so I know that there are some folk reading my story. Why haven't there been any new reviews? :'/**_

**_I have virtual blueberry or raspberry muffins (or something else if you dislike those, though I think you'd have to be crazy not to enjoy blueberry muffins,) for anyone who reviews! And if there aren't any reviewers (or if reviewers want to read them) this time 'round the next chapter will be omake fun. There's all sorts of silliness I want to stick in here, might as well share them..._**

**_It'll mostly be goofiness I thought of while I was writing that was far too silly to fit in the story, so I set it aside._**

**_In response to Guest, who reviewed on chapter 1: Kurania isn't a British name, because her mother chose it and her mother is not British at all. I don't plan on even mentioning her until Halloween, and she won't be very important then. Thank you very much for reviewing!_**


	10. In Which There are Many Italicised Words

_**Author's Note: Hello, everyone! Going back to school for second term is kind of cutting into my writing time, but my updates aren't exactly regular anyway. Thank you to Guest for your review, although I'm a little sad that you refused to read the whole thing because of the name I picked. Another thank you to lemsv for adding this story to their favorites, I'm really glad you like it! Maybe I'll have a goof-off chapter after I finally get through to Halloween, I might need some cheering up then. I really had hoped to time skip to that as soon as possible but after thinking through it some more that sounds like a really dumb idea. I'll get there when I get there, I guess.**_

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"... another week of detention with Professor Hagrid." Professor Dagsworth finished her speech. Kurania nodded, not looking up from the tile she'd been staring at ever since she'd stepped into her Head of House's office. She was quite sure that the Astronomy professor couldn't see her smile when she heard what her punishment was to be, but her celebration was a little premature. " Since a witness argued that you acted in your own defense, Aoife O'Connell will be joining you for these detentions."

"What?!" Kurania choked, pulling her eyes from the tile and onto her professor. "You can't be serious! Who was the witness? McCoffrey? Christine?" Whoever it was, they were in for it when she saw them again.

"Ah, no. It was a young man with purple eyes and white hair, but I'm afraid I don't know his name..." Professor Dagsworth trailed away as she noticed the redhead's eye twitching.

Twenty minutes later found Kurania smasing the doors to the Great Hall open and marching up to the Gryffindor table. Out of the corner of her eye, she noticed that Professors Clay and Kolberts had leapt out of their seats and were making their way over but she did not care. "I need to talk to you." She told Hidan through gritted teeth.

"Kurania? Are you okay?" He asked as he looked at her, sounding confused and concerned, but completely oblivious to Kurania's anger.

Her left eye twitched again. "I'm just _perfect_!" She spat at him. "Now let's go."

"Go where?" He asked as she dragged him out of the Great Hall. A few teachers attempted to follow, but they were not fast enough to keep up with a furious redhead. Once she'd lost them, Kurania spun around and grabbed the collar of Hidan's shirt.

"Do you _ever think_?" She hissed. "Thanks to you, I'm going to have to put up with Aoife O'Connell _every night _for a_ week_."

"Why are you mad about it? I was just making sure she was punished too-"

"Detention with Professor Hagrid isn't a punishment, it's practically the _opposite_! Or it _was_, anyway. I just _know_ it's going to be awful with her around."

Hidan grimaced. "She isn't really so bad, she's just been listening to Teddy a bit too much. I'll talk to her, okay?"

"You probably talked to her after her freak-out by the doors, and that didn't stop her!"

"Well, no, your friend did so I thought I didn't-"

"You didn't _need_ to? What, you found _nothing wrong_ with the way she acted? She sounded _crazy_ about you!" A grin blossomed on Hidan's face, and Kurania smacked his arm. "I meant that she seems _insane_, like she would have _killed me_ just for being rude to you! What is _wrong_ with her?!"

Hidan hesitated, but told her, "She's kind of... posessive about her friends, is all..." Kurania glared at him. "Look, Aoife hasn't had very many friends and the ones she has had ditched her so that they could be friends with cooler people. Because of that, she kind of thinks that everybody's out to steal Teddy and I from her... I can convince her that you're not a threat though, tell her that maybe you two can be fr-"

"_Don't_ say friends, please don't say friends! I don't _want_ to be her friend, I just want her to leave me _alone_." Kurania pleaded.

He gave her a hurt look, and then thought up a new tactic. "You know, Teddy's up in the Hospital Wing with her right now, but he's only friends with her because he wants to be a 'good' guy, and he thinks that you're evil even more now that you're fighting with her."

She scowled at him. "I'm _not_ befriending someone _just_ to prove Teddy Lupin wrong about me."

"It wouldn't be just because of Teddy! I think you two have some stuff in common - like, um, you're both girls..." Kurania glared at him. "... She likes animals! I'm not sure she likes snakes but she'd probably love Charon!" Hidan's eyes flicked around, like he was trying to find something tangible that would make Kurania change her mind. "Why do you like your detentions with the hairy guy? Because of magical creatures? Aoife's parents were a witch and a muggleborn wizard, she knows some stuff about magical creatures and I think those are the kind she was talking about anyway."

"Did you _tell_ her that I could speak to snakes?" Kurania demanded, setting aside her desire to know more about magical creatures. She didn't need Aoife to tell her about them - Professor Hagrid could, and it was the subject he taught so he obviously knew more than her. "Professor Longbottom said that-"

"I didn't tell her, but I promise that if we do she won't tell anybody. She's really, really loyal to her friends." He insisted.

"You've known her for what, a week and a half? She could be acting. You shouldn't give away trust so easily." She scolded Hidan.

He looked quite frustrated, and it took him a moment to reply. "I trust her because she tried to save my life. It wasn't really in danger, but if it had been she would have saved me. As far as how long I've known her... I've known you most of my life, but we haven't gotten along in years and a month ago, you nearly_ killed_ me." Hidan looked her in the eye, much more serious than usual. "I feel really sorry for Aoife, and I hate how few friends she has. If you don't at least try to get along with her, I'll... I'll tell everyone about your snakes. And about the snake pit. And maybe I'll make up some stuff about you doing evil magic on the other kids."

It took Kurania a moment to pick her jaw up off the floor. "You're _threatening_ me?"

"Aoife needs friends." He said stubbornly. "I... can't really force you to be her friend, but I can force you to try!"

Professor Hagrid's words rang through Kurania's still somewhat dazed mind. _"The Headmistress wouldn'ta let yeh attend Hogwarts if she'd known yeh had almost killed a kid." _If Hidan told, she'd be thrown out, or maybe even put in some kind of jail. She wouldn't get to know Myrtle, or learn more about creatures, and she probably wouldn't be allowed near snakes ever again.

"Fine." Kurania said, her throat a little dry. "Fine. I'll try, okay? But you should know I'm _never_ sharing a secret with _you_, not _ever_ again."

Hidan nodded his assent, but his shoulders slumped a little. "I don't like threatening you," He mumbled. "But this is important."

"Right." The reply oozed sarcasm, and after it had been said Kurania turned away, flipped her long mahogany hair over her shoulder (to be dramatic), and stomped off to Myrtle's bathroom. It was only when she reached the door that she realized Hidan had followed her, and she was about to tell him off and send him to dinner when she heard yelling from inside Myrtle's bathroom.

"Has she come here?" A woman's voice harshly demanded.

"I don't know who you're asking about!" Myrtle cried.

There was a splashing sound. "The Riddle girl - has she found this place already?"

"I haven't seen anybody named Riddle! Not since-"

"Well if you _do_ see a young girl named Riddle in here, you had better make sure that she does not find the chamber! You don't want other people to die as you did, _do you_?"

"N-no, of course not." Myrtle said, but Kurania thought she didn't sound entirely truthful.

"If she does, you will be promptly exorcised." The woman said firmly. "I'll be back." She added, and Kurania heard her take a step towards the door. She looked frantically at Hidan, who pushed her against a wall with her face turned away, standing next to her. Kurania thought he was being stupid; they should be hiding, and where they were now they would surely be seen! But as the door opened, whoever had threatened Myrtle walked right down the hallway without saying anything.

When they could no longer hear footsteps, Kurania turned around to see Hidan stuffing something in his cloak. "Is that a blanket?" She asked disbelievingly.

"I can't answer that." He said, grimacing.

"Why didn't she see us? Did you do something?"

"Can't answer that..." Hidan mumbled again.

"What do you mean?" Kurania asked suspiciously. "Are you trying to say that the blanket had something to do with-"

"Hey, lets check on the girl she was threatening about you!" Hidan awkwardly changed the subject, yanking Kurania into the bathroom. "Hello~?"

"Myrtle? Are you alright?" Kurania asked anxiously, hurrying in. Her ghostly friend was in a circle surrounded by candles that had recently been blown out, and was curled up crying. She hurried over to her, knocking over a couple of candles as she gave an awkward barely-touching hug to her friend.

"Kurania?" She hiccoughed. "What are you doing here? Who is he?"

"An annoyance - just ignore him, okay?" Kurania said, waving Hidan off.

He ignored her and stepped up to look at the candles, and then at the symbols drawn on the floor. "This looks like an exorcism setup!" He exclaimed. Myrtle sobbed again. "What's going on? What chamber was she talking about? And why doesn't she want Kurania to find it?"

Myrtle shot up, sitting partially in Kurania for a moment. Kurania winced, not only at the freezing sensation but also at the fact that she had never told Myrtle her last name. "Your last name is Riddle?" She asked, sounding like she would faint.

"I'm sorry, I should have told you but I didn't want you to hate me like everybody else does after they hear my last name, but I should have gotten over it and told you anyway, I never thought you'd get in trouble because I talk to you-"

"So you can't talk to snakes, then?" Myrtle sounded almost disappointed, which certainly wasn't a response Kurania had considered when she began to babble.

"No, she can." Hidan reassured her. "How did you die and what do Riddles and a chamber have to do with it? And are you two friends, because I thought Kurania was afraid of ghosts." The red-haired girl's left eye began to twitch, and she reached over to smack his arm.

"I was killed by a Basilisk, in this very bathroom. Tom Riddle commanded it to kill me, because he didn't want me telling anyone that he was the one attacking students, or telling people where the Chamber of Secrets was. I didn't even realize that was why he was in here, not until Harry Potter refound the chamber and killed the Basilisk in it. Even if I had known I wouldn't have told, though." Myrtle sighed dramatically. "Tom was such a handsome boy... He helped me, once. Stopped someone picking on me when I was a first year... I had a hard time accepting that he had been the one to kill me, but now I think that the real reason he killed me was so that I could take my own revenge." She finished determinedly.

Through Myrtle's back, Kurania could see Hidan swirling his finger in a circle beside his ear. "So, is a Basilisk a kind of snake?" She thought she remembered Professor Hagrid saying that a snake had killed Myrtle, but she couldn't be sure, and she didn't need Myrtle ranting on happily about her cute murderer.

Myrtle nodded. "Aren't you going to ask where the chamber is?"

"Why would I want to go to a place with a huge dead snake? And anyway, if you tell and I look around you'll be in trouble."

"I want to know where it is!" Hidan said eagerly. The dark-haired ghost turned to look at him.

"Can you talk to snakes?" Myrtle she wanted to know. He shook his head, but gave her a pleading look. "There's a password to get in - you have to say 'Open' in the language of the snakes, so even if I told you where, you couldn't get inside. You'd need Kurania-"

"-and I don't want to go in." Kurania couldn't help but imagine that the portal to the Chamber of Secrets was through a toilet. It would explain perfectly why Tom had killed someone rather than have it known he'd snuck into a girl's loo and jumped in a toilet, at least in her mind. She certainly wouldn't be caught doing something so weird.

"Aww, c'mon! It could be fun!"

"It could give you more blackmail, you mean." Kurania snapped at him.

It took Kurania quite a while to drag Hidan out of there, because he was quite keen on having an adventure. After that she tried to go down to dinner but it was already over. When she told her snakes about the chamber they were quite excited and also wanted her to go down there, saying some nonsense about the Chamber of Secrets being the true throne of snakes. She supposed that she was mishearing things because she was tired and put herself to bed. In her dreams, the four houses each had a tower with a flag showing their colors atop it, and an army bearing red, yellow and blue banners was approaching the Slytherin tower.

"Primary colors!" Rodger exclaimed. Kurania frowned at the seven year old orphan and wondered what he was doing there. "I know, I'm not in Slytherin so I can't be here. Sorry, but I had to deliver this prophecy: Beware the ducks!" Once he finished speaking, blood began to flow from his eyes and fingertips until he had melted entirely into a pool of boiling blood.

A strange noise echoed over the land, and then a voice from among the attackers yelled, "Give up the princess of snakes now and we will spare you!"

"Don't worry, we will never give her up!" Denise appeared in front of Kurania as she spoke. Kurania turned around, wondering to whom Denise was speaking. In seven rows all of Slytherin stood. "We must fight for the princess!" The green amy hurrah'd nd disappeared. "Kurania? What are you doing - aren't you fighting?" She had planned on answering before something suddenly hit the back of her head, knocking her conscious. Kurania had fallen out of bed and onto the floor, and sunrise was a couple hours away. However, Kurania could not fall back asleep after that odd dream.

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_**End Notes: Lots of italics in this chapter, but I feel that it helps you understand which words were emphasized. Angry Kurania puts emphasis on a lot of words in my head, so it shows that she's still angry. Its mostly dialogue because I got a bit carried away, and then I kept writing because the views hadn't yet reached 20 for the last chapter. I don't know if they have yet, actually, but I'm posting nonetheless.**_

_**This chapter turned out differently than I meant it to, but I can't help but think its a good thing that the story's starting to write itself... If reviewers disagree I can try forcing it, because I'm unsure about having the villain of the second year appearing in the first. I don't really want to stack that plotline on top, although I probably could - it would fit pretty easily. I have already come up with adventures for all seven of Kurania's years, although more often its her fighting herself in some way rather than a physical enemy. Plans can change, of course, but I like the way I've got things lain out right now.**_

_**Still, most of the time when I write I depend on readers a little and although the last few chapters have been exceptions, if anyone has suggestions for things they'd like to see I'll try very hard to get them in! I know at least one person suggested some things that I could do, and I will try to get them in if I see a chance to.**_

_**Well, thank you all for reading - please review!**_


	11. As Annoying as a Zit

_**Author's Note: Thanks to The Amendable Snow Freak for reviewing, and to CAG7 and hiraikoneko for adding this story to favorites/alerts! There were a lot of views for the story on Thursday - looking at the stats put a smile on my face. Actually, looking over my stat history it seems that more people read this on Thursdays than most other days, even if I didn't update. Hmmm... I really pay too much attention to the statistics. Eh, whatever - enjoy!**_

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The next day passed in a sort of daze. Lyra had to drag her to breakfast, and between classes, and make excuses to the teachers. Kurania didn't ever find out how exactly she had avoided detentions that day, but she was quite sure Lyra had helped. After lunch, Lyra took her to visit Myrtle. "Is she - alive?" The ghost asked, looking mildly concerned as she stared at Kurania's blank face.

"Yes, but she's been like this _all morning_! Thank goodness we don't have classes on Friday afternoons, or she would be cleaning bed pans for a _month_. As it is, she's got a detention in a few hours. Any idea how we should snap her out of this?"

They tried soaking her, pinching her, walking through her, and telling her irrelevant but shocking nonsense, but didn't have very many ideas outside of that and ended up discussing whether or not to take her to the Hospital Wing. They took so long about it that just after they had decided to take her after all, Hidan walked into the bathroom.

"Oi! This is a girl's toilet!" Lyra snapped at him. "Get out!"

"Hey, so this is where you've been hiding!" Hidan said brightly, ignoring Lyra to talk to Kurania. "What's with you today?"

"She's not really responding to much of anything." Lyra said irritably. "You grew up with her, didn't you? You must know how to snap her out of it."

"Well, yeah. This happens sometimes - all you have to do is cut her hair-"

"How _dare_ you even _think_ about _cutting_ my _hair_?!" Kurania yelled, turning to slap him. However, Hidan had expected it and dodged easily. She chased him around the sinks, shouting at him for his stupidity and insensitivity. Lyra and Myrtle could only watch, shocked as they were. When Kurania finally tired of trying to hit Hidan, she turned on Lyra. "And _you_! You would have _let_ him!"

Hidan snickered, and she threw him a poisonous look. "Nobody was really going to cut your hair," Kurania growled at those words. "But you always jump right up when I say it. Seriously, are you that vain?"

"It's not _vanity_, I just love my hair..." Kurania sulked. "And you can deny it all you want, but I _know_ you want my hair!"

"Why on earth would I want your crusty-blood colored hair?!"

"My hair isn't _crusty-blood colored_, it's _mahogany_! And it's a _thousand_ times better than yours, you _whitehead_!"

"If I'm a whitehead, then you're a crusty-bloodhead - a cru'dhead!"

That led to another chase around the bathroom, although Myrtle was quick to stop it this time. When Kurania had finally calmed down again , Hidan left the bathroom with a final reminder. "Don't forget about our chat yesterday!"

Kurania had in fact forgotten about her detention with O'Connell, and about Hidan blackmailing her into attempting to befriend the girl. The reminder wasn't a very welcome one, and caused her to spend her remaining time before dinner half-wondering what she should say and half-working on her homework. Consequently, Denise cackled like a witch from an old story as she edited Kurania's Transfiguration essay. "Angry much?" She asked as she handed it back, still smirking. Kurania was more than a little embarrassed - she hadn't intended to add swearwords, or rant on about rat hunting, and she certainly didn't mean to tell Professor Karlin what she thought of her teaching methods.

"I was really distracted." Kurania apologized.

"Well, then - a piece of advice. Don't write essays while you're distracted. I found it quite amusing, but I doubt Professor Karlin would." Denise said, standing up.

The first years headed for dinner together and midway to the Great Hall, Rode remembered something. "Try not to get anymore detentions this week." He told the other nine. "Plue says that since we keep ignoring his advice and wandering off in pairs, we're going to be having duelling lessons every week, starting next Friday. He usually waits until Christmas to teach first years, apparently, but we're too troublesome." Roderick seemed quite proud of that fact. Dinner passed rather quickly, and Kurania ate more than usual to make up for earlier meals. After dinner, she met O'Connell at the doors to the Great Hall.

It was an unintentional meeting, and Teddy walked up to glare intimidatingly over the black-haired girl's shoulder. However, O'Connell herself didn't seem angry, merely nervous. "Well..." Kurania said awkwardly. "C'mon, let's get going..."

"I'm sorry!" She blurted out. "About, um..."

"Yeah, I get it." Kurania tried to sound understanding. She led the way to Hagrid's hut, neither girl talking as they crossed Hogwart's vast lawn.

The bearded man was waiting for them on his porch, and frowned at them as they grew closer. "Yeh know, I was hopin' I wouldn't be seeing yeh for detention again, and yet yeh're back after just two days."

"Sorry." She mumbled.

"Are yeh? What were yeh thinking, anyway - hexing a fellow student, after what I told yeh!" Professor Hagrid didn't seem angry so much as annoyed.

"Don't tell her off - I started it." O'Connell interrupted suddenly, her voice shaky. "And I'm really really sorry about that, Kurania - I just... Hidan was really nice to me, and people usually aren't nice to me, and then Teddy was too and he told me all Slytherins were evil so when Hidan went to talk to you I went with him just in case and then you yelled at him and I didn't want you to because he's so nice and then I found out that you and him were friends but it seemed like you were really mean to him and I got mad, and then you were laughing at him even though he was really scared and I wanted to kill you." She admitted it all in a rush. "But Hidan told me later that your meanness sometimes is why he likes having you around because it makes him feel better even though its yelling and mocking and such, but he thinks that's how you show you like someone..." She took in a deep breath. "And he told me that you really are a nice person, and that I need to stop yelling at you and that he'd really like it if I would apologize to you and be nicer and try and be your friend because you're having a rough time lately and Teddy and I aren't helping-"

"He asked Teddy to be nicer to me?" Kurania said, sounding horrified. She hadn't wanted to say anything until she was quite sure O'Connell was done talking but that was more than worrisome. "Hell, he's probably going to be _worse_ now." And after realizing that she was speaking ill of someone who was clearly overenthusiastic in defense of her friends, "Er, not to be rude about it or anything, but he really believes that I'm evil."

"Yeah, he does." O'Connell agreed with an awkward laugh. "Um, Hidan thinks he'll get over it though..?"

Kurania nearly snorted, but managed to restrain herself. "Well, I hope so. I haven't done anything evil-" That he knows of, she corrected mentally, "-and I don't like how he acts about my last name." O'Connell gave her an odd look, as if she hadn't heard anything from Teddy about Riddles.

At this point, Professor Hagrid coughed. Kurania had sort of forgotten he was even there. "I'm glad yeh've sorted things out, but the two o' yeh are still here for detention..."

They didn't go and look at any kind of interesting creature, or even go near the forest this time. Instead, they helped Hagrid cast charms on his pumpkins so that they would grow faster, quicker, and wouldn't be bothered by pests. It took more time for Hagrid to teach them the spells than it did for the girls to cast them correctly over the pumpkins, and they headed back to the castle within an hour of heading out. However, they did talk while they worked and Kurania found out some interesting things. O'Connell had already met Professor Hagrid, because he was an old friend of Teddy's famous godfather; He did not seem to mind it when O'Connell referred to him as merely Hagrid; and Aoife thought snakes were treated far worse than they should be in mythology and in fairy tales.

Aoife had only brought the matter up because a harmless snake came to take a look at Kurania, and it surprised her quite a lot. Still, she didn't tell Aoife about her connection to snakes because a part of her believed Hidan had told Aoife about it and hoped he could pretend he hadn't if Kurania told Aoife soon enough.

As she fell onto her bed several hours later, Kurania wasn't sure whether she should be upset or happy. She couldn't really tell why she would be either, so she just fell asleep.

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**_End Notes: Sorry if the cru'dhead thing insulted anybody - I felt like it was a stroke of genius as far as insults go. I'm not very good at making insults up, _****_so I was really happy when that popped into my mind. Once again, I had planned for things to go very differently in this chapter and it has somewhat messed with my plans for the next two chapters. I kind of feel that chapter quality has been slowly decreasing as I write, by the way... if anybody has an idea for what I can do to fix my problem, please share!_**

**_Also - thank you so much for reading! The next chapter will be up on Wednesday or Thursday, unless Writer's Block attacks, and interesting things will actually happen in it! That'll be a nice change, won't it?_**


	12. Suspicions and Summons

_**Author's Note: I'm sorry this took so much longer than I wanted it to! I wanted to put a large number of things in the chapter and I was grounded from my computer... I was really pleased to see how quickly the last chapter earned twenty views, by the way! Thank you to Laurenacosta and QueenOfPears for following/adding this story to alerts, and to AwesomeSauce and BotheredOne7 for reviewing! Sorry if this chapter is a bit of a disappointment: I really just want to get the chapter after this up and done with, and my writing style probably reflects that.**_

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The rest of the detentions Kurania and Aoife shared were as boring as classes were frustrating. To ensure that every Slytherin could attend duelling lessons on Friday, all of the first years behaved alarmingly well. Pluto had told them before not to attract attention or argue with teachers, but they hadn't really listened then. Now that they were, a few of the more annoying teachers got worse. "... so, would any of you purist bastards like to help with this demonstration?" Professor Clay asked on Monday with a smirk, waving a Hufflepuff's off-color potion in Kurania's face.

"I'd be happy to try it, sir." Christine answered, although she was eyeing the vial apprehensively.

"I'm sure you would be!" Clay chirped. "But I think its Clown's turn!" A few Hufflepuffs snickered.

Kurania wanted very much to look around and pretend not to know to whom he was referring, but she didn't want to miss her first duelling lesson because of a detention. "I'd be happy to help." Kurania spoke dully. "Sir."

"Naturally!" The teacher replied, cheerfully handing her the vial. If the potion had been brewed correctly, Kurania should have become mildly exhausted. Instead, her feet lit on fire and her arm turned a vivid shade of orange. Her eyes swelled up and her eyebrows fell off a few minutes later, and only a silencing charm kept her from swearing up a storm while she sat down and took notes on proper potion-drinking technique - that was Clay's excuse for the potion's failure.

Kolbert seemed almost terrified at the level of compliance; Karlin took it as an opportunity to turn Slytherins into guinea pigs (literally); and McCoffrey almost seemed sad. "Where's your fire gone?" She asked, her brow scrunched up in concern. "Why are you all pretending to be wimps?" She tried to assign everyone positions, with three Seekers and two Keepers on each team, but Slytherin allowed Hufflepuff to steamroll right over them. Thoroughly disheartened, McCoffrey had the Slytherins land and then practiced her Beater skills on the unfortunate badgers. The nicer teachers also seemed concerned, but the most entertaining response by far was Teddy Lupin's.

Kurania had been on her way to see Myrtle when she'd noticed Aoife standing alone in the middle of a corridor. "Kurania!" She called, looking relieved to see her. "I've been looking for you..." The black-haired girl said, and then led the Slytherin into the closet of a deserted classroom, where an orange-haired boy waited with a solemn expression on his face.

"Hidan insists that I can trust you." Teddy spoke stiffly. "So tell me - what are the Slytherins planning? Why are they letting us walk all over them?"

"You know I'm one of 'them', right?" Kurania raised her eyebrow at the use of 'us' and 'them'.

"Hidan said-"

"Forget whatever he said, he's an idiot. Anyway, Slytherin isn't doing anything evil: our prefect promised us a reward if nobody gets detention this week, and we're being a little too enthusiastic about it, is all."

"You're lying!" Teddy snapped. Kurania didn't argue it, because it had been a half-truth. "You're all trying to make us lower our guards so we won't notice if you... if you..." He stumbled, trying to think up an evil plot. "... so we won't notice if you bring a dragon to school and have it eat us all!" He said wildly. "Or... dementors! Vampires! Trolls! Something along those lines... quit laughing!"

Kurania couldn't've if she'd tried. Dragons, vampires, trolls - she didn't know what a dementor was, but she could guess. "You should have your own show!" She gasped. " 'The Ridiculous Theories of Teddy Lupin'. You'd have a fan club in no time."

"I wasn't joking!" He said irritably, reaching for his wand. However, the Slytherin was already long gone. Kurania giggled all the way to Myrtle's.

On Friday at the appointed time, the Slytherin first years gathered in their Common Room. A few older students waited with them, claiming that they were going to help teach. One of them, a blonde, had her hair braided so that it formed a circle on top of her head. The circle appeared to contain twigs and bird eggs, and Kurania couldn't help wondering if they were real eggs. After several minutes, Pluto Reardon showed up and assigned groups of twos and threes to mentors and then taking his own group up staircases and through secret doors to a hidden room on the fifth floor. The other three groups soon entered and Plue began the lesson.

"For our first few classes we're going to work on the most basic spells for duelling. They're defensive more than offensive, but they're still very important. The one we'll be working on today is the disarming spell, and next week we'll try out the shield charm. The incantations are '_Expelliarmus_' and '_Protego_'." Pluto demonstrated the proper wand movement as he spoke each spell. "Today's just disarming though, so divide into pairs and take turns. Myself and these volunteers will walk around and help you if you're having trouble."

For the first half hour, things worked quite neatly. The spell generally failed, but on occasion a wand would fall. The older students that were supposed to be helping only did so when Pluto was looking, but it didn't really matter. Pluto was more than enough to help ten students. Roderick and Kurania worked together, and she did manage to knock his wand away once, just before Pluto left for his prefect rounds. Much of the class, including Roderick, stopped working immediately once he was gone, though. Several students started practicing offensive duelling spells, with one mentor aiding and abetting them, and some started chatting. Kurania walked over and talked to the girl with a bird's nest in her hair, who had decided to practice a bird summoning spell, because Kurania kind of wanted to learn the spell so that she could scare Hidan with them - he was absolutely terrified by birds, and was hilarious to watch when the mail came to the tables every day.

"I'm going to be a spy when I'm all grown up." Bird Girl informed Kurania quite out of nowhere. "I'll be an illegal owl animagi and I'll be able to get into any building in the wizarding world and no-one will ever be suspicious of me!" Her voice sounded quite like a toddler's, and was quite expressive. It was quite easy to tell that she was cheerful, determined, and also proud of herself.

"Should you be telling me this, if you don't want anyone suspicious?" Kurania asked skeptically before trying out the spell. "_Avis!_" A straggly little flightless bird appeared, looking terrified and chirping nervously.

"Well, I don't think _you_'ll tattle on me." She said loftily. "_Avis!_" Four white doves swooshed around her before noisily squishing themselves together to fit into the nest made of hair. Once they'd settled in they began cooing and looking around eagerly.

"How did you tell them to land in your hair?" Kurania asked, wondering if Bird Girl had the same sort of connection to birds that Kurania had with snakes.

"While you cast the spell, you think of what you want them to do, and then they'll do it - with the exception of attacking. They only attack if you... hold on." Bird Girl pulled out her wand again and looked around before pointing it at one of the other older students. "If you say _Oppungno!_" In a flurry of feathers, the four birds hurled themselves at the student she'd pointed to, viciously biting and clawing and following him as he ran out of the room screaming.

Kurania spent a good part of her weekend trying to get the hang of bird summoning, but she just couldn't produce one that could fly. Her many grumpy failed attempts shuffled around on the floor of the Slytherin common room for the better part of a day, and by the time an older student was finally annoyed enough to send them back the room was littered with droppings. Said student, a tall and thick girl with hard features and brown hair cut just above her shoulder, scolded her for several minutes before she taught her a spell to clean the place up.

The original plan for that next week had been to continue acting as they had the week before until Pluto could find a better time for duelling lessons, but after the first several of the first years didn't think it was really worth the effort. Within the first three minutes of the first class on Monday, Phillip Langley had detention for talking back to Professor Clay. Not five minutes later, Kurania earned herself one by calling Clay a 'useless, deaf old coot' after he once again referred to her as Clown. She was a little surprised that it was just one night of detention and not a full week, but she obviously didn't argue.

"Going to keep me company?" Phillip teased her on their way to the next class, and Kurania just rolled her eyes at him. Their detention, of course, involved cleaning without magic for a couple of hours, with Clay peering over their shoulders and smugly enjoying his power as a teacher. She was quite tempted to tell him that he was quite pathetic, as far as evil teachers go, but that seemed like a rather dumb move and so she kept her thoughts to herself.

By Flying Lessons on Wednesday, all of Slytherin had given up on the idea and although Pluto was frustrated with the loss of points and the detentions, he had not had the time to properly scold them yet. McCoffrey was very excited to see that the Slytherins had gotten their spark back and gleefully assigned positions and set up a rotation so that everyone could try each position out. Kurania was a terrible Chaser, an abysmal Keeper, and she refused to even try at Seeker. She was quite lucky that Beater was the last position she was asked to try, because she had to accompany a Hufflepuff she didn't recognize to the Hospital Wing after breaking their arm. McCoffrey seemed quite pleased, but after the lesson several Slytherins were rather cold towards her. Kurania couldn't figure out why; they hadn't minded when she hexed a Gryffindor intentionally and was punished for it, so why should they be upset when she accidentally hit a Hufflepuff with a bludger and faced _no_ punishment?

Kurania watched Hidan's lesson the next day from a window - he didn't even try to get on a broom, instead sitting underneath the game wearing a large dunce cap - only rather than dunce, it read 'WIMP'. Aoife was a fairly good Keeper but a dreadful Beater, and Teddy Lupin was easily the best player on the field, annoyingly competent at all four positions. Kurania walked away from the glass after their class ended with a rather twitchy eye.

On Friday, seven of the ten Slytherin first years managed to attend the duelling lesson. Phillip couldn't make it because he had detention with Flitwick; Orion and Lyra faked sick. When Pluto tried to begin the class by explaining the shield spell - the same spell Kurania and Hidan had taught themselves before term started - Gabriel interrupted him to beg that they learn fearsome hexes already. "My father says that the best defense is offense!" He argued, but Pluto would not hear it.

"You've got to learn the basics before you go on to harder spells!" Slytherin's prefect insisted. "Now, there are several kinds of shield spells and wards but the only spell you'd probably use in an actual duel is _Protego_. So I want you all to alternate between using_ Expelliarmus_ and _Protego_ with a partner."

"We've got an odd number of students." Casey Madison pointed out.

"Alright then... whoever is without a partner will work with Elena." He gestured at Bird Girl, who looked up from her book and pouted.

Once again, class only remained orderly until Pluto left for his rounds. This time, Bird Girl and the other mentor, Orpheus - who still bore scars from last week's bird attack - divided up the class. Orpheus showed Denise, Roderick, Casey, Opal, and Gabriel a spell called Incarcerous, which caused ropes to appear from thin air and bind a specific target. Elena planned to show shrinking and enlarging spells and their affects on living bodies, though only Kurania and Christine chose to follow her.

"Well, I don't really want to practice on a bird in case I hurt it on accident, so I'm gonna summon something else." She told the two, and briefly stared at Kurania from the corner of her eye before casting a spell. "_Serpensortia!_" The snake that Elena produced was a darker shade of vivid forest green, and had a fairly thick body. It looked around curiously for a moment before noticing Kurania.

"Hi there!" The snake practically chirped, and Kurania leapt back, surprised.

"That was a bit of a delayed reaction!" Elena noted. "Your friend jumped the second the snake appeared - but, you didn't until it hissed... So you're the Lord's daughter after all." She seemed quite pleased with herself, and oblivious to Kurania's reaction.

"The Lord?! What, like God?" Kurania sputtered when she could get her jaw to move. "You really are mad! I mean, I guess I should have known, what with your hair-"

"Not the _muggle_ god!" Elena snorted. "_Our_ Lord, the Da- oh, whatever, if you don't know I don't want to explain it to you. Anyway, _Engorgio!_" She snapped, flicking her wand at the snake. Kurania could only watch in horror as the snake spasmed and tripled in size.

"Are you alright?" She asked the snake frantically, shooting Elena a venemous glare.

"Alright?! No, I'm not alright!" The snake bellowed. "That... that just now... can you tell her to do it again?! That felt amazing!"

"It... what?" The redhead froze and blinked, taking a moment to process the change in situation.

"Is it... hurt?" Christine asked timidly from the other side of the room, her shaking wand held out between her and the snake.

"She, and no..." Kurania replied automatically.

" 'Course not! Most summoned animals love being spelled, so long as they don't lose a limb or something." Elena chirped, stroking the snake's back. "_Reducio!_"

As the snake shrunk, she spoke to Kurania. "My name's Cracked Green Rock!" She writhed a little once she was thinner than Charon. "What's your name?"

"Kurania." She replied, mentally deciding to refer to Cracked Green Rock as Jade in order to save herself some hassle.

"Hmmph. I hope you're a better sort of Parselmouth than the last one who came around here - wouldn't listen to my great-grandfather _at all_."

"Parselmouth?"

"Yes - that's what humans who speak Parseltongue naturally are called. The language we're speaking now is Parseltongue... has no one explained things to you?" Jade huffed. "It's my family's job to explain things though, I suppo- ACKK!" She interrupted herself as Elena forced her to grow again.

"Are you okay - and what do you mean, your family's job?" Kurania asked, more than a little confused.

"I'm fine, she just surprised me... it's our job to make sure that Parselmouths know their duty. Although..." Jade paused for a moment. "Have you entered the... oh what's the human term... Tunnel of Secrets?"

"Chamber of Secrets? I'm not going in there. If I were caught there then Myrtle would be in a_ lot_ of trouble." Kurania shivered as she remembered the circle of candles and Myrtle's misery.

"You'll have to go there someday! The current king... he'll be dead in a year or two, and there's no one to succeed him now. There needs to be a new royal - you have to create one!"

Kurania stared at her blankly. "I... have to do what now? And what are you going on about, what king's going to die?"

Jade gave her a frustrated look. "Look... I'll explain it to you after you've been to the throne room, or Chamber of Secrets, whatever. We'll leave it at that for now." She remained mostly silent for the remainder of the lesson, although she occasionally hissed wordlessly when one of the three girls made her grow or shrink or change color - the last was an accident on Christine's part that made Jade more of an amethyst, and when Elena changed it back she left the tip of her tail purple.

When Kurania and Christine left for the Slytherin dormitories, Jade was about twice as thick as she had originally been and draped around Kurnaia's neck like a scarf. "I'm going to stay with you tonight," Jade mumbled sleepily. "But tomorrow you need to take me out to the Forbidden Forest."

Kurania frowned. "But... didn't you say you were going to explain things to me after I went to the Chamber?"

"Didn't you say you weren't going to go to the Chamber?" Jade countered. "Anyway, I live near that hairy monster's house, on the edge of the forest. If you yell my name around there I'll hear you and come. Actually, you can come visit anyway - there are some very nice trees around there." She added hopefully. "Lots of rats to eat, enough that I can share."

"That sounds lovely." Kurania said, only a tinge of awkwardness in her voice. Explaining to snakes that she did not like to eat rats never really went over well, so she did not try.

However, Jade was not an ordinary snake. "Ah, forgive me... I forget, although you smell like a snake you are human. Humans eat food differently, right? They, or rather you, don't like the hair and have to make it really warm before you'll eat it." She sounded quite proud of herself for knowing. "And you're lots bigger anyway, so a rat wouldn't fill you. Right, forget the offer - it was silly of me. Still, you can come and talk with me any time."

"Okay." Kurania agreed, although she wasn't sure she should. She had been considering asking Myrtle if it would be alright to visit once a week rather than once a day because of the danger Myrtle might be in if the woman that had threatened her returned, and since the forest Jade lived in was called the _Forbidden_ Forest, Kurania probably wasn't meant to go in there either.

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**_End Notes: Definitely not my best chapter, and way overdue... I'm really sorry!_**

**_I had intended to try and fit in descriptions of the Slytherin first years, but I pretty much failed. I'm probably going to try and put it somewhere in the chapter where I introduced them by name. Does anybody know if there's a Head Boy and Girl in every house or whether there's only one of each in the school?_**

**_Also - in my initial disclaimer I said something along the line of 'if you recognize it, it's not mine' rather than 'I don't own the Harry Potter world' because I've put in characters and ideas from other books or from shows, and sometimes references to movies I like. Did anyone notice which character has the same name and appearance as a character in a show? I'm not really sure what sort of prize I can offer if you get it right, but if you ask for something reasonable I'll try!_**


	13. The Midnight Adventure

_**Author's Note: Hello and welcome back to Kurania and the Slytherin Legacy! Thank you to dreamingrocketships, Luke21 and SiriusBlackLivesOn for favoriting/adding to alerts, and to Anj for reviewing! I was really excited about what the stats showed me, so I tried to work quickly on this chapter, but that ended up slowing me down majorly and it's been like twenty-two days... fail. By the way, this is the Halloween chapter I've been repeatedly advertising throughout the last six or seven chapters. I'm not entirely sure I'm doing it justice, but I hope things turn out nicely! Also, isn't it a little cool that the Halloween chapter is the thirteenth chapter? Bad luck and all.**_

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The next morning, on Saturday, Kurania was woken up rather early by a chipper green snake. All four snakes had kept her up late the night before, talking and arguing in voices that were too quiet for Kurania to understand their words even when she strained her ears, but too loud for her to fall asleep. It annoyed her greatly that they were keeping secrets from her, as well, but when she mentioned that aloud Jade immediately assured her that they would never hide something from her again if she would just go to the throne room.

Her dormmates did not lose any sleep because of the hissing, and Kurania sat for several hours waiting for them to wake up in the morning. Eventually, she gave up, dressed, and headed down into the common room where a few students were sitting around quietly. Phillip Langley and the girl who had de-summoned Kurania's birds the weekend before were playing chess in a corner, but they were the only two that Kurania recognized.

"Can't you just take me to the forest on your own?" Jade asked her grumpily.

"No - what if we were attacked on the way? I don't really know any hexes, I can't defend us! Besides, most students here hate snakes and they might... well, hurt you." Kurania had risked going alone several times to visit Myrtle and on her way to detentions, but she wouldn't dare risk it when she had a snake with her. They were much more fragile, and Kurania doubted anyone would be penalized if they did kill one of her snakes.

Jade huffed in reply. "Kurania, I'm not an ordinary snake. My family was chosen to guide Parselmouths for a reason - we've got magical venom that can hurt, help, or do nothing all depending on what the snake who it came from wanted to do. If I bite myself, then I will heal from almost any ailment - I really doubt any silly student could hex me irreparably. Anyway, I'll see an enemy coming before they'll see us and then we can just hide - so there's no reason not to go alone."

"Still... one other person at least should come with us." Kurania said, unswayed by Jade's explanation. The snake sighed exasperatedly, but did not argue when the Slytherin sat down to wait. Kurania looked carefully at everyone who entered the room, hoping someone would look like they were heading outside. Finally, an older boy with dark hair and cyan-blue eyes came from the boy's dormitories holding a broom and strode purposefully towards the exit. "Are you going down to the Quidditch pitch?" She asked him, jumping up.

"There isn't anywhere else I'm allowed to fly." He spoke slowly as if to a handicapped person, one eyebrow raised at the stupidity of her question.

"Mind if I walk with you?" Kurania asked, struggling to reign in her anger at the way the older student spoke to her.

"Er, I guess." He shrugged, and then walked away. He had much longer legs than Kurania and she almost had to run to keep up with him. Her face burned with embarassment when they passed a couple of Ravenclaws because she was fairly certain she looked like a pathetic child. The brunet hardly paid attention to her, although he would throw back a smirk whenever she began to fall behind. He finally slowed down to a reasonable pace for the eleven-year old once the two were outside, causing Jade to sigh in relief. She had once again wrapped herself around Kurania's neck and though she had tightened her hold while Kurania was running, she could now relax.

"So, where are you headed-" The boy begin to ask in a friendlier manner than he'd used before, but he broke off as the blood drained from his face. Kurania frowned and followed his eyes to Jade, who lifted her head and growled at the boy. That snapped him out his funk rather quickly and he stumbled backwards, falling on his back and crawling until he reached the wall. "Wh-why is there a snake around your neck?!" His voice was at such a high pitch that both snake and girl winced, and Kurania would have sworn a crack appeared on a nearby window.

"Erm, this is Jade... and we're heading to the forest because that's where she lives and she asked me to drop her off." Kurania explained lamely. A part of her felt quite ashamed for frightening him, but another part felt vindicated. He'd looked down on her and made her run through the whole castle, so he deserved a scare. Maybe next time he'd be nicer when a young girl asked him for help.

"It's not - dangerous?"

"_She_. And no, she's just getting a kick out of scaring you..."

His eyes suddenly widened with realization. "You're... Kurania _Riddle_, aren't you?"

"Yes - what's your name?" She bit her lip and glanced off towards the treeline. Kurania didn't like the way he said her last name, almost with reverence - Professor Hagrid had said that the name Riddle was associated with Myrtle's killer, and it shouldn't have been a good thing.

"Carson. Carson Evonne." He introduced himself, standing up slowly. His knees were still shaking a little, but his face had regained color. After a moment to recover, Carson continued to walk down Hogwart's lawn and Kurania walked alongside him though several feet away. When they passed the pitch he turned away and she continued to walk alone, still feeling a bit awkward and a little guilty, too.

Within the next couple of weeks, things began to settle down into a proper pattern. Classes became less of a problem, including duelling lessons; Pluto finally gave in and began to teach hexes although he tried to toss in defensive spells as well, and Kurania managed to convince Myrtle that visits once a day were too dangerous. Myrtle was rather cold to her on the visit after that agreement, but Kurania swore that she would continue to visit often and Myrtle trusted her enough to calm down about things. Denise and Opal became rather enthusiastic in teaching Pureblood customs to Kurania and Christine, as they hoped to make them presentable before Samhain.

"What's Samhain?" Christine had asked the first time they mentioned it.

Opal wrinkled her small nose. "I believe muggles and muggle lovers refer to it as _Halloween_. Samhain's especially special at Hogwarts, and the entire school will be camping out in a clearing in the forest for several days before and after."

"We're going _camping_ for Halloween?" Kurania asked, her eyebrow near her hairline. "_Why_?"

"It's _Samhain_, and ever since the Battle of Hogwarts the castle has become unsafe on that night. The ghosts of everyone who died in the battle wander the school for one hour every Samhain now, and some of them are capable of hurting students. They never go as far as the forest, though, and for good reason. There are rumors of... of _werewolves_, and _giants_, and _centaurs_ in there!" Denise shuddered delicately. "The teachers set up wards, of course, but they _barely_ surround the tents."

Kurania had been into the forest with Hagrid several times and hadn't seen giants or centaurs. Also, the moon would be waning crescent on Halloween, but she didn't argue with the ladylike Slytherin. "So why do we need to learn to dance if we're going to be in tents that day?" She asked instead. As it turned out, there were magical tents that could appear to be a two-man tent from the outside but contain a ballroom, five bedrooms, two bathrooms and a full kitchen on the outside. The Greengrass family had such a tent that Slytherins had been using since the Battle of Hogwarts. Before that, some purebloods had given up on the old tradition as 'barbaric', and the few that had still practiced it would simply disappear for the night. Nobody really knew where they went.

"Why do you do it now, if your families decided it was barbaric?" Christine frowned.

Opal took her time answering. "Well... it seemed a little silly, to our parents and grandparents. Samhain is traditionally the night when the worlds of the living and dead touch, but there hadn't been any widely-acknowledged phenomena of the dead and moved on visiting until the Battle of Hogwarts. It'd just become a night to feast and remember those long gone..."

"Besides which, it was the night that the Lord disappeared and certainly not a night to celebrate - not until he rose again, anyway." Denise added primly.

Christine and Kurania shared a look at the 'Lord' part, but decided not to ask. The redheaded Slytherin supposed that it was a weird sort of Good Friday for the witches, and didn't really want to get into a religous debate.

Professor McGonagall formally announced the week-long field trip into the forest a couple of days before it, and Professor Dagsworth came around with a list to see who had not brought their own tent. Kurania had honestly expected that she would be one of few whose name ended up on the list, but it seemed that most students hadn't. Siblings were permitted to share tents, but everyone else had a tent to themself. Kurania debated with herself for quite a while on whether or not she should bring Kinnyoa, Charon and Deidei with her, only making her final decision to take them when Elena told her that the ghosts sometimes tore abandoned pets apart and spread their guts around the room they were found in. That conversation also led to some rather horrifying nightmares, but she was glad for it nonetheless. If she had left them and something had happened, she'd have felt much worse.

When the time came to head into the forest, each student was checked off a list once they'd passed the treeline. Phillip Langely and a couple of other first year students were silly enough to try staying behind, and the others had to wait until they were summoned - literally dragged _through the air_ - by the Headmistress before they could continue to their assigned clearing. Their Head of House briefly explained where the classroom tents were, and then they set to work putting up tents. Kurania wasn't too surprised when she noticed that many students were using magic to set up their tents, but she didn't dare try it after Gabriel accidentally lit his on fire.

After Gabriel's was fixed and put up correctly, everyone walked to the largest tent, which was actually much larger from the inside. It held three floors, one of which was carefully hidden while the other two were filled with small circular tables and chairs with silverware set out. Each table had only four chairs; one red, one blue, one yellow and one green. In the spirit of inter-house relations (or so the Headmistress claimed), no two members of one house could sit at the same table. Hidan made an attempt to sit with Kurania but she hurried towards Aoife's table. The black-haired girl seemed surprised but also rather pleased, although she became less excited when Edmund and Calliope joined them. They were the only members of their respective houses that Kurania knew, but she wasn't overly fond of their presence either.

In the Great Hall, food had always appeared on the tables and if you wanted something you got up and served yourself. In the Mess Tent - as Aoife termed it - you placed an order with your plate. If you asked for something normal, like toast, it would appear the moment you quit talking. It took almost two minutes for a blue raspberry, sour apple, and mango triple flavour smoothie to appear after Aoife ordered it. That was easily the winning order of the two's silly game to try and outsmart the plate, although Kurania's blue-green algae spaghetti with mangos took quite a while too. Luckily, Calliope was willing to eat that although it was about the only time she talked.

After everyone was quite stuffed, food stopped appearing on plates and the Headmistress's voice echoed through the tent. She explained briefly what the daily schedule would like like aside from classes (which would proceed as normally as possible). Herbology and Quidditch lessons weren't taking place in tents, and there were special circumstances for those. Kurania didn't pay much attention though, because she had noticed that Teddy and Hidan were looking at her oddly, almost speculatively. She couldn't imagine what they were thinking, but she guessed it was something stupid.

She sat with Aoife again at breakfast, but the other girl was half-asleep in her plate throughout the meal and things were rather quiet. It took almost thirty seconds for Kurania's favorite cereal to appear, and it was originally along the bottom of a plate. She had to be much more specific to get it in a bowl with milk. The cause of the difficulty seemed to be that just about nobody else was eating cereal. Her teachers showed their usual level of prejudice, with Clay and Kolberts both having only enough chairs for Hufflepuff and Ravenclaw, respectively, although you could clearly see the outlines of the missing ten chairs through a blanket in the corners of their tents. Standing made potion-making quite a bit more difficult, and Kurania's feet were aching by the time the hour was over. Before that class, though, she'd had Defense Against the Dark Arts with Veronica Hansen. Generally Veronica was quite friendly, but she was in a terrible mood during that class, stalking around the room and snapping at anyone who so much as opened their mouths to breathe while they read a chapter from their textbook. The young teacher's brown hair was usually a little curly, but clearly styled, and she often wore mascara and lipstick, but on that day her hair frizzed like Aoife's and her makeup resembled that of a clown's - even without all her yelling, the class would have been terrified.

Charms with Flitwick after lunch was a small relief. The midget Professor seemed positively ecstatic as he walked along a shelf on the tent wall directing class, but Kurania honestly couldn't understand what he was asking them to do. Charms classes were gradually convincing her that something was wrong with her ears, and she ended up putting in her earplugs after a couple of minutes and having Christine write out the pronounciation for the spell they were meant to be practicing. Kurania screwed it up a couple of times, but she didn't destroy anything important, and Flitwick didn't check in on her at all.

Since Quidditch Lessons couldn't take place out on the lawn, it was changing its name to Tree-Climbing Lessons. Christine, Kurania, Phillip and Gabriel were the only Slytherins unrefined enough to enjoy this, but a small problem came in the form of some curious snakes.

"Kurania..?" Christine said in a trembling voice the first time she ran across one.

"Why are you stopping? Keep climbing!" McCoffrey barked.

"You smell a little of snake... do you hold one captive?" The large brown snake asked, flicking its tongue to test the air. Kurania had to climb onto a very shaky branch of her tree in order to tell the snake off, with McCoffrey yelling all the while. Kurania wasn't sure if she should be happy or annoyed that the loud-mouthed teacher hadn't seen the serpent.

Herbology the following day was surprisingly boring - generally, the lessons were fascinating but disgusting, but since they could not access the greenhouses they spent the hour taking notes as Professor Longbottom lectured about the useful properties of a magical plant whose name Kurania couldn't pronounce, much less spell. The only real highlight of that day was watching Gryffindor's Tree Climbing Lesson. Teddy and Hidan tried to have a race, but Hidan looked down when he was halfway up and wouldn't move another inch until Kurania summoned a hummingbird and set it on him.

"You shouldn't prey on his fears like that." Aoife told her, looking concerned.

Kurania snorted. "He's been doing it to me for ages - and anyway, if he would face his fears they wouldn't bother him so much."

"He probably should..." Aoife relunctantly agreed. "But if you're going to argue that, then you need to take swimming lessons." At that thought, Kurania grimaced.

As it was the day before Halloween, third years and above were allowed to walk to Hogsmeade with Professor Hagrid. They were only allowed two hours in the village, but that was plenty enough time for Elena to buy supplies for the Samhain celebration. Kurania was given the job of unloading them from her magically expanded bag into a cupboard in the Greengrass tent, and she couldn't help being a little confused.

"I thought you were supposed to use rocks... why'd you buy clay?" She asked.

Elena smiled brightly, and the vulture in her hair nest made a croaking sound. "Well, clay is a sort of rock, isn't it? And it's the cracking that's more important. Some rocks just don't work, but clay _always_ does." The redheaded Slytherin just nodded, although she didn't really think that sounded right.

Despite the fact that it was a holiday, the Slytherins still had lessons on Friday. The first class held a bit of surprise - when Kurania walked into the Transfiguration tent, she had expected to see Professor Karlin. She managed to walk in, sit down, and take out her book before it occured to her that the woman waiting for everyone to enter was, in fact, Headmistress McGonagall. As it turned out, the usual Transfiguration teacher was apparently an expert on the sort of phenomena seen at Hogwarts on Samhain and stayed at the school in order to observe. Kurania found this a little hard to believe, and she wasn't the only one. Phillip was of the opinion that Professor Karlin had actually been eaten by a werewolf the night before, and thought that the Headmistress was covering it up so that students wouldn't panic.

In History class, Kurania chose to sit on the floor rather than stand for an hour. Professor Kolberts would probably have deducted points or given a detention if McGonagall hadn't come in at that moment to borrow a chair and noticed that he'd hidden them in a corner. Phillip grinned from ear to ear as he watched the Headmistress chew out the teacher, and even Denise was forced to admit a grudging respect for the witch.

After that, the day continued to improve. Kolberts was forced to behave as McGonagall left a kitten to watch over when she left for her own class. Kurania wasn't sure how a kitten was supposed to report back, but then she supposed it was possible that McGonagall had a connection to cats akin to Kurania's with snakes. That, or perhaps it was a summon like Elena's birds and had the command to attack or get help if Kolberts acted angry. Whichever way it was, the History professor seemed quite scared.

When classes ended for the day, Plue ushered all seventy Slytherins into the Greengrass tent in ones and twos while keeping an eye out for teachers. Samhain celebrations supposedly weren't against the rules, but as most of the school regarded Slytherins inexplicably as villains it could be viewed with a great deal of suspicion. Once everyone was settled at the tables around the tent's ballroom, Roderick and the girl who had sent away Kurania's birds a few weeks back (Kurania seriously needed to learn her name; it was rather cumbersome always addressing her as that,) wheeled tubs of clay and ensured everyone who wanted to participate had a brick. Christine was rather enthusiastic about the activity; she formed something like an alligator, then a bird, before finally settling on making a large pawn.

"Are you sure you want to be represented by that?" Kurania asked, frowning. She didn't really know what to do, so she'd been absently trying to make a perfectly round ball without cracks.

"Better a pawn than a crystal ball." Lyra teased her. She and her twin brother were making a pair of wings together, although they'd promised to slice it in two once they were done.

"It's not a crystal ball! I just... I don't know what to make." She sighed, looking around for ideas. Denise had just finished something that looked a little like a rose but also like a pine cone, and Opal seemed to be working on a heart. "Aren't you supposed to hollow things out?" Kurania asked.

"No, because hollowing things out is supposed to make it so it won't crack. The point here is to look at the cracks, though." Christine explained.

In the end, table by table students stood and placed their creations on shelves. Kurania was never able to figure out what she wanted to make, and ended up placing her ball on the shelf with her name as small as she could make it without it becoming illegible. Twenty minutes later, when everything and everyone was clean, Elena led the way skipping to the Mess Tent.

Halloween dinner was a major event for the rest of the school, and the feast was a great deal more interesting than usual. Still, Kurania knew that better food awaited her in the Greengrass tent and ate lightly. Students drifted out early with claims of a stomach flu, like they did every year, and like every other year most of the staff assumed someone had hexed the plates in front of the Slytherin chairs as a prank and did not find their escape suspicious.

Before heading to the party, Kurania stopped by Opal's tent to borrow dress robes. She didn't feel very comfortable in the dresslike outfit, though, and decided to wear her school robes after all. Opal was a little concerned about that, but Kurania wasn't planning on dancing and couldn't imagine any other situations that would require formal clothes. She almost regretted her choice when she entered the Greengrass tent to find that it looked entirely different from the way it was before dinner. Most of the tables were gone, and she was forced to stand against a wall to watch everyone file in. Three wrinkled little creatures known as Twink, Spark, and Ickle carried around trays food offering them to students sitting and standing, and a couple older students Kurania didn't recognize began to play music. The ballroom-like atmosphere was a little at odds with the giant bonfire in the far corner of the room, though, and Kurania was a little surprised when people began to dance. On the other hand, she managed to snag a real chair.

About half an hour in, Phillip Langely came over and asked her to dance but she promptly turned him down. An older girl at the next table seemed to find this hilarious, though, and dragged him over to give tips. He asked again a minute later with a huge bouquet of flowers, and was again turned down, after which some more girls joined in and made a game of it. Rather than being embarrassed, Phillip seemed quite pleased by their attention. When they got around to neon-glowing signs, Kurania stomped off across the room to sit with the short-haired girl who had gotten rid of the birds ages ago, and found that her name was Ashley Greengrass. Apparently, she was Roderick's older sister and had somehow gotten ahold of alcohol despite the fact she was only sixteen.

She introduced herself fairly calmly, but then grabbed Kurania's sleeve and yanked it up until she could look at her entire arm. "You've got lots of muscle, for a girl anyways. You should join the Quidditch team! It's loooots of fun!" She went on ranting about brooms in a less-than-child-appropriate manner that had Kurania bright red within a couple minutes. She would have ran away if Ashley wasn't still holding her arm, but instead she had to glance over longingly at the table at which Phillip was trying to convince Elena to dance with him.

After what felt like days, Kurania was finally able to pull herself away from the older Greengrass witch. Glancing around the ballroom nervously, she decided that it wouldn't hurt much if she decided to step outside for a breath of fresh air to pale her face before she tried talking to anyone else. The moon's light gave the trees a silvery sort of edge, and the sudden lack of babbling around her left her feeling a little dizzy. Of course, the calm didn't last for long, because a pale hand suddenly appeared and grabbed her arm.

Kurania very nearly shrieked, and only managed to hold it in because she didn't want to destroy the peace of the night. After swallowing it down, she tore the bodiless hand away from her. "Don't claw me!" A familiar voice yelped.

"_Hidan_?"

"I'm here too." Aoife added in hesitantly.

"How are you-? Why-?" Kurania broke off and shook her head for a moment.

"Does it matter?" Teddy Lupin whispered angrily. "Anyway, it's called an invisibilty cloak. Get under, will you? And hurry!"

"And why _should_ I? Where _exactly_ are you going?" She demanded to know, her eye twitching.

"Do you really need to know?" Hidan asked, his voice taking on a singsong quality. "It's going to be a fun adventure and we're not going to get in any trouble for it. Isn't that enough?"

It wasn't, but she went along anyway. Kurania hadn't forgotten the blackmail Hidan held, and she didn't want to start an argument about it with the other two present. Underneath the cloak, Kurania could see the other three students clearly but had a hard time looking at the old, faded piece of paper Teddy held. The most he would say about it was that it was a map, but the Slytherin was quite sure it was more than that. The rainbow-haired boy would not even let Hidan or Aoife examine the paper, and that seemed quite suspicious.

Still, he managed to lead the four out of the forest easily without anything sinister attacking them and put his 'map' away promptly when they began across the lawn, not taking it out again until they were nearly at the front doors of Hogwarts. "So what exactly's going on? Are you all trying to get torn to shreds by violent ghosts?" She asked, glaring at Hidan. He laughed but didn't otherwise answer her question, and she didn't speak again until she suddenly realized, with no small amount of dread, where they were heading. Gripping Hidan's arm tightly enough to cut off circulation, she snarled in his ear, "We're _not_ going there."

"I don't know where you're talking about." He replied cheerfully. Kurania wanted to strangle him, and might have tried if Aoife hadn't frowned at her just then. About five minutes later, Hidan pulled the cloak off of everyone and pushed the door to the girl's bathroom open. "Myrtle~, we're here!" He called out.

"What took you so long?" The ghost asked sulkily. "I was beginning to think you weren't coming."

"Sorry, it took us a while to Kurania. Can't get in without her, after all."

"I wish we could." Teddy Lupin grumbled.

Kurania finally picked up her jaw to retort, "So do I!" Her voice was much too loud and Aoife flinched. "Just how long have you been planning this?!"

"Since I found out nobody'd be in school on Halloween. This way, we can see the Chamber but Myrtle won't get in any trouble, because nobody'll ever know we were here." Hidan sounded quite proud of himself, and Kurania held her arms behind her back so that she wouldn't be tempted to smack him. The only part of the whole situation that she didn't hate was that she didn't have to climb in any toilet. Instead, she had to go down a sink.

After it was opened and all five could clearly see that the pipe down was long. Very, very long, and dark, and it smelled something awful. Teddy and Hidan wanted to jump right in, but Aoife worried about how they'd get back out. They decided to tie a rope to something so that they could climb slowly down, and back up, but they faced two problems. The first was a lack of rope, although Myrtle was able to quickly remedy that by teaching the younger students how to create rope from thin air. The second problem didn't occur to Myrtle until Teddy had begun rappelling down.

"The door to the Chamber closes after people enter it!" She spoke suddenly.

"What? How are we supposed to get back up then!"

"I don't know. I never paid much attention, but... I think opens whenever something approaches it from inside?"

Kurania sighed, "Well, let's hope so."

Of course, more problems presented themselves soon enough. Hidan had somehow forgotten that he was afraid of heights, and of the dark, in his excitement to have an adventure, but that didn't last very long. In fact, he remembered partway down, just as Kurania was starting. Consequently, she had to find a way to deal with his panic attack and get him moving back down the rope. By the time all of them had reached the bottom, their hands were rubbed raw from the rope and were quite annoyed to find that the pipe ended in a way that probably would have allowed them to slide down the whole thing rather than absail. A thick layer of bones and fur covered the floor and Aoife puked when she crushed her first skull. There didn't seem to be any human remains, but nonetheless Kurania found that she didn't want to walk across the floor.

"Myrtle, could you teach us a cleaning spell?" She asked, her voice trembling slightly.

"I don't know any." The bruenette admitted.

Kurania swallowed. "Right. Well, let's climb back up, we can come back when we know-"

"Now, hang on!" Teddy interrupted, looking incredulous. "We're not just _leaving_! We've hardly looked around at all, and it's not like we can come back any old time. Someone came and threatened Myrtle, remember? If we come in some other time we could get her in trouble."

Kurania had half a mind to ask when Teddy had begun visiting Myrtle, but she knew that wasn't an important point here. "Teddy, Hidan's still freaked, Aoife's puking, and I don't really want to be here either. Get over it."

Unfortunately, she was voted out three to two, with Aoife the only person taking her side. The black-haired witch flinched with every step she took, doing her best not to look at the ground while they walked. Kurania felt nearly quite sick as well when they began to walk alongside the giant snakeskin and Teddy and Hidan started a conversation about the amount of money they could make from selling Basilisk scales after they'd climbed over a random pile of rubble. Aoife looked nervously at the ceiling, and had to go and say something to scare Kurania. "What if more of the ceiling collapsed? Do you think we'd be flooded in?"

"Wha- you... don't ask me that kind of question!"

"... It really isn't hard to learn how to swim-"

"I don't care. I tried swimming lessons once, I couldn't do it then, I can't do it now, no more discussion!" Kurania's voice rose in pitch as she spoke. Normally, she could be a little rational when merely talking about her fears, but it was all too easy to imagine the damp tunnel filling with water and her slowly dying as water filled her lungs...

"Why are so scared of water?" Aoife wanted to know.

"Hidan didn't explain it when he told you about it?" The Slytherin sneered, glaring ahead at a white head.

"He only mentioned it by accident. The same with you talking to snakes."

Kurania raised an eyebrow. "How could someone _accidentally_ mention-"

"When I asked him why... well, why you didn't jump in after him before I could, if you two were so close." Aoife fidgeted with the edge of her sleeve. "As far as the snake thing goes... anyway, that was my fault too." She finished awkwardly.

Eventually, the two witches, two wizards and ghost found themselves in front of a door with two snakes carved in. Emeralds glittered from where eyes should be in the pale wandlight, and Kurania hissed, "Open sesame," at them. Immediately after 'Open', the images began to slither apart and take the door away with them. Finally, they had reached the actual Chamber, but Kurania couldn't've been less impressed. Clearly, when Jade claimed that the Chamber of Secrets was really the Throne Room of Snakes she'd been messing around. In basic design, it was quite similar to the Great Hall, although the snake carvings along the pillars were a little extravagant. However, this room was clearly where the smell of decay originated from. The walls and floors were covered in grime and stained by blood, and a huge rotten corpse lay across the room. Dried blood, nearly black from age, lay all around the once-magnificent creature and even Teddy couldn't help but gag.

"Why didn't Uncle Ron Vanish that thing when he came back?" He asked, covering his nose and mouth with his sleeves. "Please tell me you know how to get rid of that!" He begged Myrtle, who shook her head. The ghost seemed only vaguely aware of the smell, and was peering at the Basilisk's body curiously.

"So that's what killed me." She said, her voice echoing around. Myrtle seemed almost sorry for the creature, despite her words.

"Who killed _him_?" Kurania asked, fighting tears as she imagined how blood had reached all of the places it had, and looking at the Basilisk's gouged out eyes.

"Harry Potter." Three voices simultaneously answered.

Her left eye began to twitch as her stomach dropped further. She probably would have yelled some rather choice words about the true cruelty of the supposed hero if, at that moment, quite deep in the castle, a clock hadn't struck midnight. Their wandlight flickered suddenly, inconcievably, and a huge cloud of blackness began to form beside the Basilisk's head. After a moment, large glowing slitted eyes, a vivid red like a ruby, came into being and it began to hiss. Unfortunately, Kurania couldn't hear any of its original words because Teddy promptly shouted, "Is that the _Basilisk's_ ghost? Bloody hell!"

At the noise, the cloud swirled timultuously and then flew directly at them. Everyone jumped out of the way, but Teddy wasn't quick enough and it touched his arm as it streamed by. Howling in agony, he grabbed his now-bleeding arm and Aoife jumped up to pull him behind a pillar. From the other side of the room, Hidan yelled, "Kurania! Distract it!"

"What?" She called back, staring at him. The cloud was coming back now, going directly towards Teddy for a second attack.

"It's a _snake_ right, _so talk to it_!"

Kurania grimaced, but came out from behind the pillar anyway and hissed, "Stop!" in the most commanding voice she could manage. The cloud did indeed stop, and whirled around to face her.

"You dare to command Lord Voldemort?" It snarled in reply.

It took the Slytherin a moment to remember where she'd heard that name before. "You're the guy that died in the Great Hall." She said without thinking.

"_Excuse_ me?" He replied, angry heat rolling away from him in waves. "Is that _all_ I'm remembered for?"

"No, no! It's just that... that was the only time I've heard someone actually say it. Most people are still too scared." She explained hurriedly.

That seemed to be the right thing to say, as the cloud quickly calmed. "Of course... they can _never_ forget the things I've done." He said, sounding pacified.

"Certainly not." She agreed, relieved that he'd calmed down. "Um, where'd you get the name Voldemort, anyway?" Kurania stalled, looking around for a way to escape the mist-like phantom. "It's awfully unique."

"Lord Voldemort." It corrected her, glowing red eyes appearing again for a moment. "I made a name for myself_,_ by rearranging the letters of the _common_ name my _filthy squib_ of a mother gave me."

"It couldn't've been that bad of a name." She tried to calm the malformed ghost.

He laughed, a cold high-pitched laugh that hurt her ears. "Someone like me, someone who is without fault, deserves a _far_ better name than something so plain as-"

He broke off, and then the dark cloudlike mass shuffled around and changed a little, before quite suddenly beginning an angry rant about Harry Potter. Taking a couple of slow steps backwards, Kurania looked to the other three students hiding partially behind pillars.

"Is it going to try and attack us again?" Hidan asked in a sort of stage whisper, and the momentary calm broke. The cloud barrelled towards Hidan's pillar, and he ran from it as quickly as he could.

"STOP!" Kurania yelled frantically. "Please stop!" But it seemed that the ghost couldn't hear her voice now. Luckily, Hidan moved faster than the black mist, but he wouldn't have been able to keep ahead for much longer if the cloud hadn't frozen suddenly within a couple of minutes.

Whatever it was made of swirled for a moment, and then it began slowly moving away from Hidan, towards Kurania again. "You're speaking Parseltongue." He suddenly realized. "Who _are_ you, girl?"

"Wh-what do you mean?" She asked, startled by the change of topic.

"What is your name?" He repeated in a sort of snarl.

"Kurania." Kurania replied quickly.

Glowing red eyes appeared again, glaring at her. "Your _surname_?" It asked, voice deadly cold.

Taking a step back, she mumbled, "Riddle."

Instantly, the thing changed again, laughing that ear-shattering laugh. "Oh? Hmm, you don't look much like me at all, but you speak the tongue... and you're Slytherin, I see, good..." Voldemort's ghost mused in a silky voice, almost to himself.

"Why would I look like you?" She demanded, increasingly confused. Lead dropped into her stomach, though, and she could sense that she would not like the answer.

"Your mother never told you?" He seemed amused by this, although a tinge of anger was also audible.

She'd meant to say, "Told me _what_?" but instead she blurted out, "I've never met my mother."

Ruby eyes widened momentarily, and the cloud began to speak before the eyes suddenly faded away and it suddenly flew at her. She jumped out of the way but landed on her foot wrong and fell. As it spun around to face her, Kurania covered her face with her arms and closed her eyes tightly. She felt an intense warmth before suddenly something screamed agonizingly and the heat faded away. She waited until she heard Hidan's shaky laugh to move her arms and opened her eyes. Curls of dark mist were floating upwards away from her, and although her arms were a little red Kurania wasn't really hurt.

"What just happened?" She croaked in English.

"It just... blew up." Aoife explained weakly.

Hidan added, "Screamed first." almost incoherently.

Kurania cleared her throat a little, and then tried to take charge. "Let's get out of here quickly, in case it comes back."

"Ted's not really awake." The Gryffindor witch mumbled. "I tore part of my cloak off to wrap up his arm, so it's not blood loss, I think," She added quickly.

"Well, let's carry him to the-" Kurania tried to stand, but her ankle wobbled and she fell again.

"I can hold him. Aoife, help Kurania up." Hidan commanded.

"No..." Kurania argued, and managed to get everyone in a line that it went Hidan-Teddy-Aoife-herself, so that both of the unharmed Gryffindors could support the green-haired boy and she could lean on the other girl to walk. It was very slow going at first, but Teddy recovered enough that he was soon able to walk without much help. He was quite pale, though, and did not chat the way he usually did, besides asking if everyone else was alright.

When it came to climbing back over the rubble they'd passed easily before, though, things became more difficult. Kurania couldn't really place weight on her ankle and she and Teddy waited while Aoife and Hidan cleared up the path. "You almost let it attack Hidan." He accused suddenly. "Shouldn't you be able to control snakes better than that?"

She stared at him, surprised. Had the entire conversation been in Parseltongue, if he still thought that had been the Basilisk's ghost? "It... wasn't much like a snake. He kept going between being sort of aware and then mindlessly attacking. I did ask it to stop..." She mumbled rather pathetically. "But he just... couldn't hear me."

Teddy continued to give her a glare. He only stopped when they started onward, and none of them talked again until they reached the entrance and noticed an ashamed ghost waiting at the bottom. "You're all alright!" Myrtle exclaimed when she noticed, wringing her hands. Despite her happy tone of voice, she looked terribly nervous.

"No thanks to you." Teddy growled.

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_**End Note: Well, this chapter didn't go exactly as I wanted it, but it's a well-known fact that good authors are controlled by their characters, rather than the other way around! I couldn't figure out exactly how to write Voldemort's ghost, though, and I'm sure that part's pretty disappointing. I'm sure someone will be all, "Voldemort's soul was in pieces, he couldn't have a ghost," but that would be why he doesn't have a solid form. Earlier in the books, Sir Nick claims that wizards who are too scared to move on become ghosts and that just fits Voldy perfectly. As far as appearing in the chamber - when I think of how his soul was broken I imagine that the smallest piece would actually have been the piece still in his body, while the largest piece would have been in his first Horcrux, the diary. Sorry about alternating between calling the ghost 'he' and 'it', but I wanted y'all to know how Kurania felt, because she couldn't decide if the ghost counted as a person or not.**_

_**So... all of my chapters are taking forever to write these days but at least they're getting nice and long. I'm always grateful to those who read this story all the way through, and I'll be even more grateful for reviews! I need some suggestions for future events, because I'm running a bit of a blank after this. In November there's Myrtle's birthday and I have plans for Kurania's Christmas, and I have a good of idea of events after that, but I don't want to just rush on by! **_

_**Also, I'm going to take a little break from things on the next chapter, and I already have half of a nonsense-y KatSL/BBC's Merlin crossover finished. It takes place in the episode The Sorcerer's Shadow, and Kurania and Hidan are fifth/sixth years in it. I do have some plans for what I want Kurania to do throughout her Hogwarts years and I may briefly reference one or two, but that doesn't necessarily mean my plans won't change. The longer crossovers will probably all be set in the same sort of timeline, by the way.**_

_**Reply to Anj: I had kind of noticed that her roommates are kind of personality-less - Honestly, I haven't yet decided what most of the Slytherin first years are like, besides Kurania, Denise, Phillip and Rode. That's a pretty bad mistake on my part, and I'm working on it - the next real chapter will hopefully help more.**_

_**Once again, thank you for reading! If you've got any comments, corrections, or suggestions, please write me a review! If you're not logged in I'll answer it at the end of the next chapter, so please don't let that deter you from reviewing.**_


	14. A Small Vacation

_**Author's Note: Thirteen chapters, 38,000 words... a mere seventeen reviews. If there are problems with my story then please leave me a review explaining what's wrong rather than just clicking away. Even if you're a guest, I'll be more than happy to see a review! It at least tells me that my story was worth an additional thirty seconds of your time...**_

_**Just so everyone knows, this is NOT a REAL chapter. These are just a couple silly crossovers that've been rattling around my head for ages now, and they're a lot more fun for me to write than a normal chapter, so in a way this is like me taking a break. **_

_**The first, Time Travelling Accidents, takes place in the world of BBC's Merlin, in the episode titled 'The Sorcerer's Shadow'. It will refer to two other crossovers in my head that I may or may not write up in another chapter like this along with the second half of it.**_

_**The second, Snake Summons, is just something I thought of while I was writing the third chapter and I kind of want to share it, even though it's quite short and silly. I was forced to use google translate for the Japanese used in it, and I will love you to pieces if you can give me a better translation!**_

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**Time Travelling Accidents (Part One)**

In a shadowy forest of tall trees near Camelot, a young wizard fell from the pre-dawn sky holding half of a broken Time Turner. The fifteen year old was an albino, with white hair and purple eyes, and he wore a strange collared black cloak with red clouds outlined in white across it. In the hand that did not hold half of a Time Turner, he held a triple bladed scythe. Hidan's landing was by no means gentle, and he couldn't help but swear. "Gods -what the turnip just happened?! Where is that pineappling girl - KURANIA! Get your orange over here! I'm going to pineappling kill you..! Arrgghh... Where the pineapple am I, anyway?" It took him a couple of minutes of grumbling to realize that Kurania honestly wasn't nearby, and then to notice that the object in his hand was broken. "Oh cranberry." He cursed. "Kurania, you better not have landed in another _time_, gods-plummit!"

He spent a long time searching the forest for her before he ran across a path and decided to follow it. After what felt like an hour, after the sun had truly risen, the path began to drop between two small cliffs and Hidan couldn't help but frown nervously. It was all too easy to imagine someone raining bullets down on him from above, and anyway it was much colder where the sun couldn't reach. Underneath his cloak, Hidan wore only a pair of pants, and his shoes were open-toed and occasionally his feet would touch the cold dirt of the path and make him shiver.

Quite suddenly, he could hear voices louder than the noisy morning birds in the trees, and on a random impulse Hidan climbed up the rocks to walk over more discretely to observe the people in this time, whatever time that might be.

"Is that what your pretty new sword's for?" A large man in leather clothing with dark hair and a trimmed beard sneered at a teenaged boy. Judging from the boy's clothing and the way the man had spoken, Hidan guessed that he was somewhere between the fall of Rome and the seventeenth century. That didn't eliminate much, but at least it was unlikely he'd be shot by a bullet.

"Yeah." The boy replied, rather dumbly in Hidan's opinion.

The large bald man on the other side of him yanked the sword off of his back, and the string that had been holding it fell to the ground. "Let me see." He said, grinning as he stepped away. To Hidan at least, the sword looked plain. It was also shiny, but that was about all he could really notice about it.

"You ever seen this tournament? Believe me, a little boy like you's got no chance. Especially without a sword." The boy's expression didn't change much throughout this little speech, and Hidan thought he looked a little daft. Both men chortled, the hairy one tapped the teenager's chin and then they began to walk away.

The boy dressed in rags stood there staring after them for a moment before he said, "Give it back." There was a slight note of hysteria in his voice, but it was the only indication that he was upset.

"Hoy, I'm doing you a favor! One day you'll thank me!" The brunette called back without turning around.

"I said, give it back." The boy said, his eyebrows scrunching up quite seriously. He then leapt at the two men but was quickly shoved back.

"I thought you were a fighter? Well, here, I'll show you how to fight." The boy made an attempt to shove the man down, but Hairy Man punched him in the gut and knocked him to the ground. Then he spat at the boy's feet. "Good luck at the tournament." He said angrily, and then turned away. Both men began to laugh once again.

"Immature much?" Hidan yelled down to them, and they whirled around to stare at him, nearly tripping over their own feet. "Honestly, are you medieval _muggers_ or something? You're as stupid as _trolls_." At that word, the boy began to get back up and hurry towards the pile of items strewn amongst the leaves.

"Who the hell are you?" Baldie snarled at Hidan.

"Hidan of the Akatsuki... not that you've any idea what the Akatsuki is, so I don't know why I mentioned it. If you did know though, you'd cower in fear." The albino assured them.

"Yeah, right." Hairy snorted, but he pulled out a knife. He only managed one step before the forgotten teenager pointed directly at him and made him trip and drop the weapon. Hidan was mildly impressed that the stupid bumpkin could use magic wordlessly but he shoved that aside to slide down the hill and approach the men, only pausing briefly to grimace at the rotting leaves and mud now stuck to his once sparkling cloak.

Their fight was brief, very brief - Baldie attacked first with the boy's sword and Hidan knocked it right out of his hands before slamming him in the side of the head with the back of his scythe. Hairy jumped right up then, covered in rotting leaves, and pulled out a mace. It took Hidan a while to knock him out because he was trying rather hard not to stain his poor blade with the idiot's blood, and he hadn't practiced using his scythe as a staff.

Once he had finished, he turned to look at the boy. "Hey, what's your name, anyway?"

"Gilli." Gilli told him. He was wearing that idiotic expressionless face again, and Hidan tried to muffle his snicker.

"Gilly? Isn't that a girl's name - short for Galadriel, or something like that?"

"No." He said, but didn't seem upset at all. That irked Hidan, because he rather enjoyed annoying people, and he had to restrain himself from trying harder to get under Gilli's skin.

"Right, then... erm, here's your sword. Sorry I stepped in on your fight, but those two had such a stupid laugh, I couldn't stand hearing it for another second." The boy'd been attacked and robbed, so Hidan made an effort to sound polite.

"Are you going to Camelot for the tournament, too?" Gilli asked, waving off Hidan's excuse.

"Camelot?" Hidan exclaimed, horrified. The only time he'd ever heard of the place was in a reference to the legend of King Arthur, and he was pretty sure that all of the crazy sword-in-stone stuff happened in the time of the Greeks. Or maybe Egyptians; he'd never been too interested in non-magical history, and it was easy for him to mix up the timelines. "Erm, I mean, yeah. Or, no, or... anyway! I need to find my friend and I guess she might be in Camelot, and a tournament sounds kind of interesting... What sort of tournament is it, exactly?"

0~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~0

Hidan watched sceptically as Gilli spun around in the middle of a busy dirt road inside of Camelot's lower town. Red and yellow ribbons hung from strings above everyone, and they were about the only thing besides the sky that looked _clean_. He noticed that a lot of people were staring at his cloak in awe, probably because it was a much finer quality than the potato sack-like clothes most of the townspeople wore, and briefly remembered that the end of it was still covered in rotten leaves and dirt. He didn't think it would be particularly wise to clean it magically, though.

While Gilli entered the noisy building bearing the sign 'The Rising Sun', Hidan continued down the street to talk to a man in a bright red uniform bearing a golden dragon. Although Hidan did his best to describe Kurania in great detail, the guard claimed rather rudely that he had not seen anyone like her. The next six people he asked gave similar replies, but the sixth, a wrinkly old woman with a lazy eye, claimed to have seen her. "She was on the back of the giant toad that flies around the town square all the time." She whispered in his ear as if it were a secret of grave importance, casting a suspicious glance at a nearby cat while she did so.

Hidan spent several hours walking around Camelot trying to find a flying frog, peering in nooks and crannies just in case it was hiding somewhere. It was late afternoon by the time Hidan approached the old woman again and she reminded him that he was supposed to be looking for a giant toad, not a mere frog, and that it only circled the town's square. Of course, it took him quite a while to find the square and even then he could not see the toad the old lady had spoken of. Finally giving up, Hidan went into the tavern Gilli'd gone to and convinced the boy's current roommate that it would be in his best interests to find another bed for the night. Gilli didn't seem to appreciate this much, however.

"Couldn't find your friend?" He spoke very quietly as he played with his lame jeweless ring, but Hidan easily recognized the irritation lurking in the words. He felt a little proud of himself for finally bothering the boy, although he wasn't sure what he'd done.

Hidan sighed and settled in on the floormat he was meant to be sleeping on for the night. "No. This one old hag claimed she saw her on the back of a flying frog over town square, but I hung around there for _ages_ and I never saw her."

0~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~0

There were few sights as amusing as that of a large number of morons all trying to train with a crazy variety of weapons on a single field, and Hidan's particular favorites were a man dressing as a ninja waving his little blades around like a madman and a Hagrid-sized man that kept smashing things up with a giant axe. However, he was slightly disappointed to see that each and every one of the men on the field were in fact male. A large part of him had hoped that Kurania would be here, training for the tournament with all of the other oddities, but whatever time this was, it was clearly not yet okay for women to fight alongside men.

Resigning himself to the hope that Kurania would find him eventually, Hidan entered the field to train a little.

**Snake Summons**

"I found it!" Hidan yelled, barging into Kurania's room - she quickly yanked her shirt back down.

"I'm _dressing_! You can tell me later-"

"I found out how to summon snakes!" Hidan cheered, ignoring her entirely.

Kurania hadn't expected that. "You what?"

"I just told you-"

"Why were you looking for that?" She elaborated, frowning at him.

"For you, of course. I still have to find out how you send them back, but to summon 'em you move your hands like this," Hidan weaved the signs boar, dog, bird, monkey, ram, "and then bite your thumb reaaaaally hard so that it bleeds," Hidan did so, "and slam it down!" The symbols spread away from his palm and a cloud of dust came up before a small snake appeared.

"Doko made hanashimashita ka?" The little white snake asked. "Orochimaru-sssssama wa kokode wa arimasssen...Watashi ga dono yō ni koko ni kimashita ka?"

Hidan stared up at Kurania, looking dumbstruck. "Um. That doesn't sound like snake language..."

"Err, definitely not." Kurania agreed, looking disbelievingly at the snake summon. "Maybe you summoned a retarded snake?"

"Anata wa dare?" It asked, looking around and flicking its tongue out. "Anata wa, hebi no yōna nioi..."

"Where exactly did you find that... spell, or whatever?"

"Oh! Erm, it was in this book..." Hidan replied, holding out a small paperback book with the word 'Naruto' across the front.

"Hidan... that's a manga." Kurania informed him, her eye twitching madly.

He blinked and shrugged. "Well, it sort of worked, didn't it?"

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_**End Notes: I could really use suggestions for the next real chapter, like what sort of thing you'd like to see happen to Kurania. If you have suggestions for short stories though, I'll gladly do more of these. I mostly write this for my own pleasure, but reader's opinions are also very important to me!**_

_**Also, I would still REALLY like a new sorting hat rap. Mine was absolutely dreadful.**_

_**Even if you don't review, thank you very much for reading Kurania and the Slytherin Legacy! The traffic stats are oftentimes enough to cheer me up, although not as much as a review would.**_


	15. A Surplus of Awful

_**Author's Note: Thank you Invisi and Gwenlynn for reviewing! An opera would probably be way beyond me, but I could try. I probably won't get there for a very long time, though, thank goodness. Also, shoutouts to falkenfeder94, Eade-Hewitt and Invisi for adding Kurania and the Slytherin Legacy to their alerts/favorites! Sorry once again and a million times over for my slow update rate.**_

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_Last Time on KatSL:When it came to climbing back over the rubble they'd passed easily before, though, things became more difficult. Kurania couldn't really place weight on her ankle and she and Teddy waited while Aoife and Hidan cleared up the path. "You almost let it attack Hidan." He accused suddenly. "Shouldn't you be able to control snakes better than that?"_

_She stared at him, surprised. Had the entire conversation been in Parseltongue, if he still thought that had been the Basilisk's ghost? "It... wasn't much like a snake. He kept going between being sort of aware and then mindlessly attacking. I did ask it to stop..." She mumbled rather pathetically. "But he just... couldn't hear me."_

_Teddy continued to give her a glare. He only stopped when they started onward, and none of them talked again until they reached the entrance and noticed an ashamed ghost waiting at the bottom. "You're all alright!" Myrtle exclaimed when she noticed, wringing her hands. Despite her happy tone of voice, she looked terribly nervous._

_"No thanks to you." Teddy growled._

* * *

Myrtle flinched as if Teddy had hit her. "I-I'm sorry..." She whispered.

"Of course you are." He sneered. "You left us to die!"

"We didn't die, though!" Kurania reminded him. She wasn't happy with Myrtle either, but she knew yelling wouldn't help the situation.

"Whatever." Teddy spat, glaring at both girls. He climbed the slide-like end of the pipe and attempted to start climbing up, but couldn't seem to get more than a few feet each time.

"We're not strong enough to climb all the way up." Aoife said, looking terrified. "What do we do? We're going to be stuck down here and that thing is going to come back and we're going to die-" She began to wail.

"It's not coming back." Myrtle muttered.

"-so we're going to be stuck down here and we'll starve to death, or even worse, some teachers will find us and we'll get in trouble and you'll get exorcised and we're all gonna end up in Azkaban!" At that point she ran out of breath and fell to her knees, crushing a small skull as she did so. "Or we're gonna die of disease from exposure to all this grossness!" She added the after thought in a much calmer way.

"Calm down, everything's going to work out." Hidan assured Aoife, putting an arm around her shoulder. "As far as diseases go, maybe we should burn up the skeletons? Fire purifies stuff, right?"

"You can't burn bones!" Teddy scolded him.

"Of course you can, it'd just have to be a really hot fire."

"We don't know the fire spell anyway."

"Kurania and I do!"

"Don't bring me into this." The redhead mumbled.

Teddy had already whipped around to point his wand at her. "You're studying magic outside of classes! That's obviously the act of-"

"Quit arguing!" Aoife snapped. "You're all giving me a headache."

Teddy turned to glare at her."Arguing is _much_ better than your pathetic whining!"

"So are we going to light stuff on fire or what?" Hidan interrupted them.

"_No_." Teddy, Myrtle, Aoife and Kurania answered simultaneously.

"Then can we please start working out how we're getting out?" The albino asked, frowning at them all. Kurania grimaced, and began casting around for an idea.

"Maybe we can use the fire spell like a rocket!" Hidan suggested excitedly after a moment of silence.

"There's no way that would work!"

"Can we cast a spell to make the rope shrink and pull us up?"

"Do you _know_ a spell like that, Aoife?"

"Well, no, but maybe Myrtle..?"

Everyone looked to Myrtle, who bit her lip and then opened her mouth to speak. Teddy cut her off, though. "She doesn't know anything useful!"

"Why are you being so negative?!"

"Oh, I don't know, maybe because we're _doomed_?"

"Acting angry isn't going to get us out of here! And anyway, you should just be happy that Kurania saved you, even though you're always-"

"Ha! There's no point being grateful, she only did that because she wants to trick us into thinking-"

"If that were true, I would kill you all now." Kurania yawned, sitting down and poking at her ankle to see where it hurt the most. Teddy immediately snapped out his wand and pointed it at her, but with a quick disarming spell Aoife took it from him.

"Give that back!" He snarled.

Aoife put her hands on her hips. "Not until you calm down!"

"How do you expect me to calm down?!"

"_Silencio, Silencio, Silencio_!" Kurania cast, pointing at Teddy, then Aoife, and finally Hidan, who gave her a sort of 'what was that for?' look. "Fighting really isn't going to help us get out of here... and you were all giving me a headache, too." She grumbled.

"Erm..." Myrtle awkwardly began. "I think I know a spell that could help us out. I never tried it out though, so I'm not really sure I can teach anyone."

And so she explained a spell called Ascendio to them. Basically, it was like the levitation charm they'd learned in class, but with one difference. That charm was meant for directing objects around; Ascendio can only move its user. The direction in which you point your wand after saying the incantation is the direction you fly, as they learned from Hidan's first unsuccessful attempt. His second and third attempts showed them how annoying the rope they'd left could be, which is why when Hidan finally made it to the top on his fourth attempt he signalled the success by raising the rope and clearing the way. Aoife followed him taking two tries, and then Kurania limped over with Myrtle stepping through her foot to keep it numbed to try the spell out herself. The first time, the spell didn't even activate, and the second she barely made it off the ground. On her third attempt, she got high enough to grab the rope and Aoife and Hidan pulled her up the rest of the way. Teddy took a very long time to follow after her, but he did at last make it and the four hurried out of the bathroom.

Although Voldemort's ghost had vanished, the other Samhain visitors had not. The four had to sneak around and avoid the other phantoms in order to get out of the castle. Up until they reached the entrance, things went quite well. There weren't places to hide, and it seemed like far more ghosts were here than anywhere else in the castle. Still, that wasn't the real problem. The real problem was that the first two ghosts Teddy noticed happened to be his parents, and when he called to them and they turned to stare at him, another ghost's attack hit them and they exploded into mist. Teddy fell to his knees, staring dumbstruck at the place where the ghosts of Remus and Nymphadora Lupin had just stood as the ghost that had caused their disappearance stepped towards him.

Aoife and Hidan yanked him up and ran for it, with Kurania going after as quickly as she could, leaning on the wall occasionally and wincing when her ankle communicated its displeasure. Luckily, the ghosts were all looking at the other three run, and she made it outside without too much trouble.

However, they found another obstacle outside of the doors very soon. It was very lucky that Teddy had spotted Professor Karlin before she noticed any of them, so lucky that, as the four hid waiting for Karlin to go out of sight, Kurania was quite certain something much worse was about to befall them. Nothing did - despite how Kurania's ankle slowed them all down, they easily made it to the forest's edge, at which point Teddy pulled out his map and guided them all to the Slytherin camp.

They left her next to the Greengrass tent, where they'd found her, before continuing on their way to the Gryffindor tents. It was only as they were disappearing from view that Kurania realized they'd lost the invisibility cloak somewhere - in Myrtle's bathroom, maybe? - but she decided not to try calling them back. Ashley stumbled out of the tent suddenly, and stared at Kurania like she was some bizarre creature for a full minute before beginning a loud rant on how everyone had been looking for her, which prompted Roderick to drag the two of them into the tent. Only six people were still in the ballroom, and only two were dancing. Pluto and Elena seemed to have fallen asleep at a table in a corner, and Phillip and Christine were arguing frantically. As Kurania stepped closer, she realized that they were arguing about her.

"- keeping an eye on her!" Christine barked.

"I thought Ashley would!"

"She was _drunk_!"

"How was I supposed to know tha- _Kurania_!" Phillip interrupted himself, sounding relieved as he noticed the redhead step towards them.

Christine spun around, stared, and then slapped Kurania hard. "_Where have you been_?" She hissed furiously. "We've been worried sick! Oh, but you probably didn't care! You're always running off on your own, or dragging me with without asking, and I don't even know why I put up with it!" She spat, turning away and stomping off.

Kurania stared after her, completely taken aback. "I wasn't gone that long..." She mumbled feebly to Phillip as he dragged her across the room to find something to put on her cheek.

"Two hours." He told her. Phillip didn't seem to be angry, though, just worried. "Seriously, where were you? Why are you limping a little? Did you hurt your ankle? Were you attacked?!"

"I, um..." Kurania bit her lip, deliberating. She wasn't sure what she should tell him - her usual opinion of Phillip was that he was very immature and ridiculous, but he wasn't acting that way right now. What should she say? The truth? If he spoke to anyone about it, the woman that had threatened Myrtle could hear about it. She was rather angry with her ghostly friend at the moment, but she didn't want her exorcised. Before she'd even realized, she had began lying. "I went outside for a bit of fresh air and I noticed a sn-" She broke off, remembering that she hadn't told Phillip about her special ability. "Well, I thought I saw a... anyway, I tried to follow it and got a little lost, so I climbed up a tree to look for the camp but I fell out of it and hurt my ankle. I sat around for quite a while before I noticed one of Hagrid's paths and I followed it out of the forest and then once I was out I could see the path to the camp. I couldn't walk very fast though, although it's been feeling better the more I use it." Kurania finished lamely. She was quite angry with herself - why was it so hard to come up with a reasonable story, all of a sudden?

"Is that so?" The dark-haired boy asked, looking disappointed in her. However, he didn't call her out on her lie. "Well, let's get Elena to fix up your ankle."

He allowed her to lean on him a little as they approached the table at which Elena slept. "Hm?" She mumbled as Phillip shook her arm. "Kurania... we were worried about you." The bird girl yawned out as she saw the girl.

"Clearly." Kurania couldn't help but say. Elena shrugged unapologetically, but managed to heal Kurania's ankle and clean her off as well before falling back asleep on the table.

"Dance with me?" Phillip suddenly asked as they were on their way to the exit.

"There isn't any music!" She told him, her eyebrow raised. She really didn't understand the Langely boy sometimes.

"You don't have to have music to dance!" He argued. Seeing that she was still frowning at him, he added, "You're supposed to move around a bit after a healing, to check that everything's right again anyway."

"I'm awful at dancing." Kurania insisted. He took that as a 'yes', however, and took her hand. Kurania felt like an absolute moron when she heard Ashley snicker the first time she stepped on Phillip's foot. In order to make sure that didn't happen again, she concentrated hard on her feet. "Dancing isn't fun at all." She grumbled.

"It'd be more fun if you weren't staring at your feet." Phillip teased her. She glared up at him and then tried to stomp on his foot - he moved it away just in time. "There, that's more like it!" He encouraged, but Kurania took it condescendingly and her eye began to twitch. After five more minutes of 'dancing', she stumbled and knocked Phillip down.

"Are you alright?" Kurania asked anxiously as Phillip began to snort with laughter. She wondered if maybe she'd knocked a few screws loose.

"You really are awful." He said once he'd calmed down. "That was pretty fun though, wasn't it?"

Kurania didn't really think so, but she offered a smile and helped Phillip up. After him goodnight, she left the Greengrass tent and went back to her own. She had hoped to be able to lie down and fall asleep immediately, not thinking or worrying about anything, but her snakes had other ideas.

"You've been to the throne room." Deidei said in awe, causing her to pause while changing.

"She went without us?" Charon hissed indignantly, coming out of a spare pillow.

"If I'd known that was where I was going, I would have taken you all with me." She defended herself.

There was a moment of silence while she finished putting on her nightgown. "Well... what was it like?" Deidei asked eagerly.

Kurania grimaced as she tucked herself into her sleeping bag. "Awful." She answered simply, putting in her earplugs as the serpents complained and closing her eyes tightly. Sleep came easily enough, but it wasn't dreamless like Kurania had hoped. Her first dream was of the Chamber of Secrets, but it was sparkling clean and the statue at the end was missing. For the first minute, it was completely empty, and Kurania was free to look around. Without the dirt and the giant dead body, it held an eerie sort of beauty.

Small snakes began to trickle towards her from all directions, but they weren't looking at her. Kurania's hands were cupped to hold an egg; it was white, and honestly looked to be a chicken egg. Still, Kurania knew, somehow, that it didn't contain a chicken, and that it was the egg the snakes had come to see.

Her next dreams were more like regurtitated memories, bits and pieces of conversations she'd had throughout the day. "_Better a pawn than a crystal ball_." "_It's going to be a fun adventure and we're not going to get in any trouble for it_." "_Harry Potter_." "_You dare to command Lord Voldemort?_" "_- __far_ better name than something so plain as-" "_Riddle._" "Y_ou don't look much like me at all..._" "_Your mother never told you?_" "- _so it's not blood loss, I think- _" "_Shouldn't you be able to control snakes better than that?_" "_We didn't die, though!_" "_- fire spell like a rocket!_" "_Silencio, Silencio, Silencio!_" "_You're always running off on your own -_" "_Is that so?_" "_That was pretty fun though, wasn't it?_" "_Awful._"

The words echoed around her head without images, until a louder voice emerged. "_Kurania, you've got to get up. Don't you want to see your fortune? Oh, c'mon... I thought falling asleep with silence was supposed to make a person easier to wake with noise - Did I not get all the earplug out or something? Hey, you're okay, right?_"

" 'Mm fine." She mumbled, trying to roll away from the voice.

"Good!" Elena chirped. "I was about to set a hummingbird on you."

"Who let you in the dorm?!" Kurania yelped, sitting up and displacing a couple of snakes that had been resting on her chest. "Oh, wait, not in a dorm... nevermind..."

Elena clucked as Kurania fell back down. "Don't go back to bed! Don't you want to hear how the next year's going to go? I've already looked at your future, nearly died laughing, but I can't tell you about it right now. It'll be more fun to say in front of other people, anyway, and everyone else has to wait until after breakfast so you should have to, too. Ha, that's two too many to's!" She laughed at her own joke. "Still - up, up, up! You have to get UP!"

"Don't wanna-"

"_Oppug_-"

"I'm _up_, I'm _up_!" She cried, and Elena left laughing. Still, Kurania hurried to dress and rush out in case Elena decided to come back and threaten again. Orpheus' face was still covered in scars, and he had even gone to the nurse about it. A fairly popular rumor among Slytherins suggested that Elena added some sort of anti-healing balm to her beloved birds' claws, and Kurania didn't want to see if there was any truth to that.

Breakfast was a little strange. Aoife and Teddy never turned up, although Hidan did. He seemed quite cheerful and entirely recovered from the mayhem of the night before. However, Hidan did not even attempt to sit with Kurania, and rushed out when she began to head towards him. Frustrated, Kurania left by herself and went directly to the Greengrass tent. She was fairly early, and ended up helping Ickle, one of the Reardon houselves, set up tables and chairs. Elena was the next to come in with Pluto at her heels, and she set up a sort of desk next to the racks full of fired clay objects.

She didn't sit until at least ten students were in, all of whom went directly to their project and brought it over for Elena to examine. She opened a book and rifled through it, constantly looking between the clay and the pages as she talked to the students. Kurania made her way over at one point, but Elena waved her off, telling her that her turn would come later.

'Later' turned out to mean 'in twenty minutes'. By that time, there was quite a long line, and Phillip and Lyra were at the head of it. They seemed quite confused when Elena waved Kurania over, but she had her stand behind Phillip and read his future first. Kurania didn't hear a word of the fortune, which made her relax a little. Most people had appeared worried as they walked away from Elena, and if there was any sort of truth in fortune-telling Kurania wasn't sure she wanted people to know what her future held. She had a bit of a bad feeling about it that stemmed from Elena's wakeup visit.

"So, this was a ball originally, right?" Elena asked her surprisingly loudly as Kurania set her clay object on the table. It had been partially smooshed, and had a flat end now riddled in cracks. Her name was on the still-circlular part, with several cracks that somehow resembled arrows pointing in various directions. "Well, the general shape here has a very obvious, entirely unmistakable meaning." She continued to say, grinning at Kurania. "Normally, I'd be worried to see this for an eleven year old, but I'm sure you'll make a _wonderful_ mother!"

Kurania choked, and then turned bright red as she realized several other people had began choking with her. "_What_?"

"This shape clearly predicts that you are going to have a baby." Elena repeated, her smile widening impossibly. "More likely a girl than a boy, but don't quote me on that part." She said, quieting down now. "Most of these cracks suggest that you're going to find yourself incredibly busy and quite stressed, which isn't too surprising really, and that someone is going to make an attempt on your life - don't fuss about that, though, the sign is very faint so it might not even happen this year and I'll be able to give you more detail next Samhain, alright?" She offered, her smug grin long gone.

"I-I'm not going to have a baby!" Kurania protested when she could finally speak words. "And why would anybody try and kill me? This whole thing is crazy!" She snapped, shaking her hair to make it cover her red face as she stomped away.

"Twenty galleons says I'm spot on!" Elena called after her.

"Forty says you're not!" Kurania retorted without looking back, even though she couldn't really remember what a galleon was.

* * *

_**End Notes: I'm sorry this took me so long, but I've had a lot of projects to work on lately and I have been torn between writing this chapter and planning events up til Yule for Kurania! Some pretty important stuff happened in this chapter, although it might be easy to miss the details. What do you think of Elena's prediction, anyway? Just so you know, it's NOT what it sounds like. And those of you I've already told about it, don't spoil!**_

_**Things are probably going to go slowly for a while once again. On the other hand, my next omake chapter is partially finished and that should be a little interesting - there's a Percy Jackson and the Olympians crossover, although like most of my planned little crossovers it's Hidan-centric.**_

_**I might be able to write faster if I had some help from readers, you know! Seriously, if there's anything you would like to see, tell me about it! If I were writing for myself and only myself, it wouldn't be online! **_


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